Unraveling the history of Sharon United Methodist Church

By Guest Columnist Jim Woodrick
A few short years after Madison County was organized in 1828, Dr. Birdsong William Webb (B.W.M.) Minter, an educator and a devout Methodist, arrived in an unsettled part of the county north of Canton. In 1836, Minter deeded 62 acres for the benefit of the Methodist Church. An existing church, built in 1835, was already on the property and would soon see the addition of an adjacent cemetery and two parsonages, one for the first pastor, John Ira Ellis Byrd, and one for a Presiding Elder (now known as a District Superintendent). The church helped put the growing community on the map and gave the town its name. Previously known as “Purchase,” the town was renamed Sharon. 

Located on high ground approximately seven miles north of Canton, Sharon soon attracted other settlers, including a native of New York named Kinsman Divine. Along with his brothers, Ebenezer and Samuel, Kinsman moved up from Jefferson County and built one of the first houses in the area. Kinsman Divine followed Minter’s lead in 1838 by selling 84 acres for the sum of $2,120 to establish the town itself, and Sharon was incorporated the same year. The original town plat consisted of one and a half square miles, covering parts of five sections of land and was laid off into 64 one-acre lots. The town’s grid included six streets, one of which was named for Dr. Minter, who died in 1839. By 1840, many of the lots had been sold, and the town grew rapidly and boasted a thriving business district. 

In addition to a growing merchant class, Sharon was noted for its educational institutions. In 1837, two schools, collectively known as “The College and Academy” were established, with faculty from four denominations. Initially providing education for both boys and girls, the school was reorganized in 1842 as the “Sharon Female Academy” and placed under the jurisdiction of the Mississippi Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. 

By 1860, the academy had as many as ninety students. In 1851, Madison College was also established at Sharon. This school was reserved for male students, and its first president was Dr. Thomas C. Thornton, who was also the first president of Centenary College, now located in Louisiana. Thornton died in 1860, and then the school closed during the Civil War years. Sharon Female College was also a casualty of the war years, but both schools reopened and continued until the mid-1870s. By then, Sharon as a community had gone into steep decline. 

What caused Sharon’s rapid decline was the coming of the railroad to Canton. With increased rail traffic, many of Sharon’s residents and businesses relocated to Canton; and the schools, which had been the lifeblood of Sharon, eventually failed. Today, little remains in Sharon to indicate that it was ever a thriving town. The church, however, is still there, along with a large cemetery, which includes the graves of Kinsman Divine and Dr. B.W.M. Minter, along with many of the professors who taught at the Sharon Female College and Madison College. One mysterious grave, that of a young student named Sarah N. Burns, who died in 1847, includes this cryptic inscription: “The pretended illness of which she died was caused by mismanagement and the afflictions and sufferings of pretended friends.”

The current Sharon United Methodist Church building is the second church on the property and was dedicated on May 15, 1892. Although the current congregation is small, the church has been holding services for 186 years and has remained faithful to the original mission of the church when it was established in 1835. Among the many pastors who have served at Sharon is Charles Betts Galloway, whose first appointment was at Sharon in 1869. He was then just twenty years old. Galloway would go on to become a bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and was a prominent author and editor. Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church in Jackson is named in his honor. 

Sharon UMC meets on the second Sunday evening of each month at 5:30 p.m and is led by Rev. Brian Johnston. On December 12, 2021, the congregation will be celebrating the advent and Christmas season with a special service. All are welcome to attend. 

EDITOR’S NOTE: Jim Woodrick is retired from the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and is the author of The Civil War Siege of Jackson, Mississippi. He regularly attends Sharon UMC.