By Stephen Smoot
“O’ Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.”
Saint Augustine, one of the Church Fathers of classical times, used this metaphor to compare his spiritual heart to a neglected structure.
One could also apply it to the evolution of the Methodist “Meeting House” originally known as Palestine Church, now known as St. George’s Church and lovingly cared for by the South Branch Ruritan Club. Annually the club holds a Ruritan Sunday service on the third weekend in May, bringing happy and faithful hearts to help infuse the Spirit into St. George’s.
About 10 a.m. Sunday, attendees started to pull into the small parking lot and file up the wooden stairs leading down to the parking lot of Shreve’s Country Store. Ruritan ladies brought heaping containers of homemade lunch foods and desserts, putting together a feast under the picnic shelter on site.
All could look, but none could touch yet. Dinner comes after the service!
Rising a little higher than the shelter, graced by the shade of spreading trees, the church itself presents as a simple and dignified log structure adorned by a spare wooden cross situated above the door. Inside, walls of white accentuate the light of the sun to brighten the place of worship of the Son. Wooden pews, decorated with the carved names of generations of children who fidgeted in those seats and whittled away the time with their pocketknives, welcome all.
John Wesley, one of the founders of the Methodist faith, put more stock in the congregation “united together in the service of God” than the structure itself. From its beginning, St. George’s Church reflected the Methodist ideal that the “inmost soul” be “clothed with humility,” as Saint Peter stated. Wesley said of humility “born within and without” that the faithful should “let all our actions spring from this fountain that all men may know we have been with Jesus, and have learned of Him to be lowly in heart.”
“We do this every year,” said Gerald Sites, who shared that “I’m one of the charter members of this Ruritan club, one of two remaining.” Sites said, “I went to church here. We attended church here a lot of Sundays back in the 50s, my mother and I. The Sites family was among the original settlers of the area, establishing homes out Smoke Hole and on the North Fork near Seneca Rocks.”
He gestured to the mountainside looming across the river, saying, “All of the Alts lived on the mountain here” and “walked right across the river here” over a now vanished bridge.
According to a church history pamphlet, “the original trustees were Alfred Kimble, J. H. Lantz, Abraham Kile, and Isaac Ault” and the church was constructed in 1850. In the decades after the Civil War, however, the church fell into disrepair. By 1920, when the building came to the attention of nearby cabin owner Judge Harrison Mayberry Calhoun, it “had long been abandoned and signs of decay had settled about it.”
The “devout Methodist” Calhoun formed a community camp around the church. He had services held, organized school camps, held community events, and even passed out presents to the children of the area at Christmas. By 1931, the Episcopal Church purchased the building, the surrounding 20 acres, provided its current name, and constructed a stone rectory that housed a library and a small schoolhouse.
Around 10:30 a.m., attendees were called to enter the church by the ringing of the old bell, mounted on a wooden pole by the door. Sites explained that the bell was donated from the home of Hugh Kimble and was fastened tightly to the pole so it would stay in place.
“I’d like to welcome you all in the name of our Risen Savior Jesus Christ,” boomed a smiling Roger Dahmer, who added “come on in and sit where you want to sit!” Dahmer was accompanied by Richard Ruddle, who manned the antique organ still capable of producing a resounding and joyful noise.
Dahmer then introduced Sites, who gave the Sunday School lesson. In traditional style, all took in the lesson before the church service. Sites gave a lesson and also shared the history of the church “for those who might be here for the first time.”
Sites started with the trustees, including Ault “buried on Cave Mountain right up there.”
The good works showered on the site in the 1930s saw tragedy in 1949. More than four inches of June rain fell in the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia and neighboring Old Dominion areas as well. Miraculously the flooding, worst in memory prior to 1985, took no lives in Pendleton County. It devastated most the Brandywine and Sugar Grove area, as well as the North Fork and Smoke Hole districts.
J. G. Ashenfelter, Pendleton Times editor, reported to a Monterey, Virginia, newspaper that countywide, the worst damage was felt by livestock and poultry farmers and that countless tons of rich topsoil washed down the rivers.
Flood waters seriously damaged the little church complex, causing it to “slowly but steadily move in the direction of oblivion.” All but one of the acres for the church was sold off, leaving the church and one acre in the hands of the Episcopal diocese.
Judge Harlan Calhoun, son of Harrison Mayberry Calhoun, stepped forward to help restore what had been for a generation part of his family’s legacy. A number of community leaders, young and old, organized to restore the church once again.
As Sites recalled, he had just started working for Grant County Bank. “My boss was George Moomau” and his wife was connected to some in the Wheeling diocese. “George and I bought the church right off the bat” for $10, which approximately equals $100 in 2026.
Calhoun’s effort was joined by the Upper Tract-based South Branch Ruritan Club. Restoration of the church would require careful repair of the “chinking and daubing” of mortar between the walls, as well as a new roof. Sites, who joined the club in 1962, was chosen treasurer of the Log Church Fund and chairman of the Log Church Project.
“I got donations from one dollar to $50,” he said, noting that a Morgantown automobile dealership chipped in the $50 check. Within two years, the project had advanced to the point that Bishop Wilburn C. Campbell, who had helped to arrange the “major renovations,” rededicated the church in its 117th year of service.
Sites taught of regarding wealth as more than financial accumulation, noting that early in adult life his struggles once led him to “break the piggy bank to pay the light bill” and that “the Kingdom of Jesus is where we build our legacy. Lay up your treasures in heaven.”
With the lesson concluded, Dahmer took to the pulpit for the service. A few more came in to put the gathering above 40, which filled almost every open seat in the little church. He led those in attendance in singing “My Jesus, I Love Thee,” “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and “He Leadeth Me.”
The message of “Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled” reminded all present, from teenagers and couples in their 20s to those whose lifetime in the area spanned many decades, that no matter what travails appear in life, God “makes the unbearable, bearable.” Yet, as both the Jewish and Christian faiths emphasize, “to follow Him would not be comfortable” and that often “you will be hated for His name’s sake,” but “glory will come to those who are steadfast.”
Dahmer touched on the traditional theme of “Quo Vadis,” which means literally “whither are you going?” He gave the metaphor of getting lost on the road of life, but trying not to go astray and avoiding “this road of sin” and not be “sorrow bound,” as Hank Williams Sr. once described.
He spoke of how some might give directions and wish one the best of luck. Jesus instead, however, “takes us by the hand and leads us. Jesus doesn’t tell you the way. He is the way.”
At the conclusion of the service, the Ruritan ladies gathered under the shelter and laid out about 30 to 40 different dishes – all homemade, all delicious. Those there enjoyed fellowship surrounded by “a wilderness of towering hills . . . the tumbling clear South Branch of the Potomac River, and awe-inspiring cliffs.”
Just as Wesley envisioned, the Holy Spirit infused vitality into a humble gathering of the faithful who came together to worship God, enjoy each other’s company, and bask in the majesty of one of the most lovely corners of His Creation.
As the pamphlet concludes, the church and grounds provide “a feeling of the real meaning of continuity and eternity.”
“In these surroundings, one captures the sense of strong, serene beauty and of a loving, powerful, personal God.”
