Elizabeth Tyron Sadler started the Methodist Episcopal Church in North Dover Township in June 1827 on land owned by her father-in-law Christopher Sadler. Charter members were the Rev. Eliphalet Johnson, Mrs. Margaret Johnson, their daughter Rebecca, and niece Catherine Porter Foote. Elizabeth and William Sadler donated the land and much of the material needed to build a new wood-frame church there in 1841. As the congregation continued to grow, it built a brick church in 1908 and added a new sanctuary in 1955. After taking the name Bay United Methodist Church in 1968, it remained a center of community life and faith continuously since 1827. Family names associated with the church’s early decades include Aldrich, Cahoon, Drake, Foote, Osborn, Powell, Sadler, Tuttle, and Wolf.