Wallacetown United began with the early Methodist Circuit Riders.  These missionaries on horseback searched out and ministered to the needs of individual settlers scattered across the countryside.  Nathan Bangs preached the first Methodist sermon in this area in August of 1804.  He rode westward from Niagara around the north shore of Lake Erie, following roughly the route of today's Talbot Line, th4en only an Indian trail through the unknown forest.

The first settlement in this area was created at Tyrconnell in 1809. Wallacetown was slower to develop because the land where it was built was low and swampy. Donald Currie, who arrived from Scotland in 1833, remained the only settler for some years. As the Currie Road from the lake became more travelled a village began to grow around the intersection where it crossed the Talbot Line. Mr. Currie later named his village Wallacetown, after the Scottish national hero Sir William Wallace. Although there were only 652 people in the whole of Dunwich Township in 1841, by the 1850's  Wallacetown had grown to become the largest business and industrial centre in the area, home of excellent stores and shops, mills and warehouses, as well as one of the best carriage manufacturers in Western Ontario.

Methodist Circuit riders visited Wallacetown regularly during these early years, holding services and classes in people's homes. The classes were a time for telling of spiritual progress, bible study and prayer. Attendance was recorded, membership cards were given each quarter, and a class leader kept careful watch over all the proceedings. It was this group of people who, in 1875, decided to build the Wallacetown Methodist Church. Cohn Henry donated the land at the corner of Gordon and Argyle Streets. The contractor was Duncan McLean, and Thomas Small laid the first beams. The cost of the original building was $2000. By 1877 church membership had risen to 109. In 1880 it became head of the circuit, and the parsonage was moved from Tyrconnell to Wallacetown.

Growth was steady and strong for many years. Even Church Union in 1925, when we became the Wallacetown United Church, was managed in a very positive way. The building soon became too small for all the activities and the expanding church flock. In 1928 it was raised to put a basement under and a new vestry was built at the front and a choir loft at the back. Memorial windows and a new communion table were donated, electricity installed, the interior redecorated and the whole building bricked over. The total cost of this major upgrade was $15,000.

The willingness of Wallacetown church members to continually expand and upgrade their facilities to meet changing needs is a consistent theme through the whole of our history. After the Second World War, for instance, we read about a new organ, new baptismal font, redecorating, and more alterations. These were all completed in 1955 at a cost of $5000. An interesting sidelight to that particular story was that while the men busied themselves with a new entrance, new lighting and digging a new well, records tell us that the ladies overcame the objections of "nay-sayers" by creating a centre aisle in the sanctuary and installing broadloom!

Yet another major $24,000 renovation took place in 1959: new Sunday school rooms, washrooms, an improved front entrance, a modern kitchen and a parlour. Records show 100 children on the Sunday school roll at that time. The mortgage was paid and burned with great ceremony and praise in 1967, Canada's centennial year. In 1988 the stained 4ass windows were repaired with memorial donations from families. A new organ was purchased in 1992. And most recently we have upgraded carpet, lighting, coat racks, Sunday School facilities, brought emergency lighting up to code, and installed a cabinet to display our historical photos and artifacts.

The history of this church is a truly remarkable story of hard work, generous giving, and devotion to God's work. We have indeed inherited a proud and faithful heritage!

Standing as we do at the dawn of a new century, and living in a world so much more diverse and complex than it was even 25 years ago, we cannot reasonably expect Wallacetown United to be the focal point of community and family life that it was in yesteryear. It seems more appropriate, today, to consider how well our church is filling the personal needs of its members and how effective we are in creating new ideas and innovative approaches in the dynamic world in which our children now live and compete.

Viewed in this light, Wallacetown United is clearly among churches that are alive and well. Our leadership is young, bright, thoughtful, educated, and probably more fully aware of the world at large than most were in years gone by. We also have a strong core of experience and expertise at work within our membership. Take the breadth and depth of these human resources, add our enthusiasm for continuing God's work, and you have a combination which will have no difficulty in keeping pace with today's new and changing expectations.