On a cold, wintry night in 1780, Rev. John James, a circuit riding preacher ordained by the Church in England but disciplined in the beliefs of John Wesley’s Methodist Church, sought shelter from a storm and met local resident David Sayres at the Head of the Tuckahoe River. Sayres, a colonial soldier and patriot, did not favor sheltering a man representing the English crown, but he would not leave the Reverend out in the blizzard. From this chance meeting, a small society of Christian believers formed there. By 1781, the society was meeting in the sawmill of Jeremiah and William Smith not far from the present church’s location. Within a few years, the society had outgrown the sawmill and began planning a house of worship, and the new building, still under construction, was dedicated in 1792. With the church as a focal point, surrounding communities prospered for more than a century, but by the late 1930s new transportation and travel routes altered the area’s future, industries and businesses vanished, families moved away, houses and farms slowly disappeared, and the Head of the River Methodist Episcopal Church regressed. Traces of the former industrial enterprises still remain visible with careful observation.