City Directories and History: “Dial’s Methodist Church is one of the oldest and most distinctive churches in Upper South Carolina Conference. The organizational meeting was held in the home of Martin Dial under the guidance of Bishop Francis Asbury in 1808. The thirteen charter members were: Martin Dial and wife, Colville Dial and wife, Gideon Thomason and wife, Doctor Ebenezer Hammond and wife, William McMahan and wife, Mrs. William Hellams, Sr., Caster Dial and Dinah Wolfe — the latter two Negro servants. They called themselves Dial’s Methodist Society. Prior to the organizational meeting, religious services had been held in the Dial home with summer services in the open to the side of the dwelling.
This site became known as Dial’s Camp Meeting Ground. Soon after Bishop Asbury’s visit to the area, a log house was built on a one-acre lot donated by Martin Dial. In 1835 the log house was replaced with a larger boarded building and the name changed to Dial’s Church. A deed found in the county courthouse records, dated July 1, 1835, and made to the trustees of the church, included two additional acres. This portion was bought from John L. Harris, Jr., with Martin Dial paying for one acre and Gideon Thomason paying for the second acre.
Martin Dial, with his brother Hastings Dial, came from Scotland. According to the late Miss Emma Dial, a descendant and a local historian, there was a place in Virginia known as Dial’s Landing —the site of the home of the two brothers when they first came to America.”
Information from: The Laurens County Sketchbook, Author – J.S. Bolick, 1973
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