by William Krause
29931 Lake Road, founded 1827
Dover Lake Shore Methodist Episcopal Church.
The sixth in a series of articles to be published as a walking tour of Lake Road by the Bay Village Historical Society in 2025.
The original log church is long gone but the church community remains, now known as the Bay United Methodist Church. It was in March 1827 that Elizabeth Tryon Sadler signed a deed purchasing land in this location from her husband William’s parents, Christopher and Sophia Sadler.
The deed was recorded in June of 1827. It was possibly the same year that walnut logs from the Sadler woods were donated to build the first church building for the new congregation of which Elizabeth was a founding member. Tax records reflecting the sale were not updated until 1830.
It is said that William and Elizabeth’s house was a home for the early itinerant Methodist ministers who came to the area.
By 1828 Eliphalet Johnson, the first resident pastor, is shown as owning property on Lake Road. Elizabeth and her husband gave land and much of the material for the frame church constructed for the congregation in this location in 1841. A picture of this former church building is shown on the Ohio Historical Marker. The existing brick structures date from 1908 and 1955.