When the next session of an Annual Conference met in Jefferson ten years later (1870) Jefferson was in the North Texas Conference, the Civil War having come and gone. But its effects very present. Some of the honored names of 1860 were missing. Among these was the name of Rev. W. B. Hill who was pastor in Jefferson during 1860. He was killed at Fort Donelson in 1862. Gifts to the Church Now Recalled Property The first title to property on which to build a church was granted in 1848. The first church evidently stood in property to which the church did not hold title. Mr. Allen Urquhart “sold” (the $100.00 of the transaction seems to have been given by Mr. Urquhart) to the Trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in the town of Jefferson the lot on which the present church stands. Construction of the brick church must have started shortly, for many older residents of Jefferson today state that “the Methodist Church was the first church in town.” Mrs. Mamie Tullis Smith remembers hearing a former slave of her father tell how her father put him to work wheeling brick and mortar and how tired he became. He spoke, however, of what a great honor to him it was to work on the Methodist Church. The lots on which the parsonage was later built were acquired in 1866. One lot was purchased fer $100.00 from a Mr. and Mrs. Rooks. The second was “purchased” from Mr. F. A. Schluter for $500.00, the money being given by Mr. Schluter himself. It was this honored resident and pioneer Methodist who served as one of the trustees in 1848 when the church lot was acquired and who gave the whole $1500.00 in Mexican silver dollars to go into the bell. Mr. J. C. Murphy, a wholesaler with a great business, likewise served on this Board of Trustees, and it was he who carried the dollars on a steamer to New Orleans for shipment to New York. The Gas Heating System There is a bronze plate hanging on the wall of the church with the following inscription: THE GAS HEATING EQUIPMENT IN THIS CHURCH WAS GIVEN BY MISS BERTIE TAYLOR IN MEMORY OF HER BROTHER WARD TAYLOR On the opposite wall rests this inscription: THE ELECTRIC FANS IN THIS CHURCH WERE GIVEN BY D. WURTSBAUGH IN MEMORY OF HIS WIFE MRS. LUVENIA CLEMENTINE WURTSBAUGH