Huntingdon County Information Page

Marklesburg borough

Dedicated By A Future Bishop

Did you know? In the summer of 1852 the Methodist Episcopal church at Marklesburg was dedicated, and the dedicatory sermon was preached by Thomas Bowman.

At the time he was principal of the Williamsport Seminary. By the time Lytle wrote it down in his 1876 county history, Bowman was a bishop, and Lytle put it in parentheses in his own sentence: Rev. (now Bishop) Thomas Bowman.

No Methodist congregation had been organized in Penn township before 1847, when the Rev. Robert Beers began preaching in turn at Marklesburg and at Summers' school house. The first class, organized that year, had six members: J. Householder and his wife, Robert Gill and his wife, and Edward Duncan and his wife. The congregation at Marklesburg was organized in 1848, and the first steps toward a church building were taken in 1851.

Checked and confirmed. CONFIRMED 2026-10-30 against the sources listed: every factual sentence was tied to a verbatim passage and a script confirmed each passage is in its source. Where sources disagreed on a number, the number was left out.

Sources

  1. Milton Scott Lytle, History of Huntingdon County (1876)
  2. J. Simpson Africa, History of Huntingdon and Blair Counties, Pennsylvania (1883)

Checked 2026-10-30 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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