Ford's Chapel United Methodist Church, or simply Ford's Chapel UMC, is a United Methodist church located in Harvest, Alabama, in the United States. It was founded in 1808, and enjoys the honor of being the first Methodist Church established in what is now the state of Alabama. History Three years after the close of the Revolutionary War, in 1784, the first Methodist Conference in America was organized under the direction of John Wesley of England who appointed Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury as Bishops. 1802–1808 By 1802, settlers had left the original thirteen states and scattered across the land to the Mississippi River and possibly beyond. Until the 1808–1812 Indian War, North Alabama was the home of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee and Creek Indians. The treaty ending the war in 1812 decreed that the Indians should be moved west of the Mississippi. Indian relics and General Andrew Jackson battlefields are located in this area, called in that period, "The Big Bend Country" of the Tennessee River. During the war years the white families were moving down from Tennessee. John Hunt and his party came in 1805. In 1802, Bishop Francis Asbury had changed the location and the number of Methodist Conferences. He established a new Conference called the Western Conference to serve Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama north of the Tennessee River. He traveled by carriage from North Carolina to Nashville in October 1802 to hold his first church Conference. He created his charges, assigned his preachers, and ordained a group of young men to become ministers after a period of training. At the Conference of 1802, James Gwinn was a member of the training class, and was given the title Methodist Missionary Circuit Rider. On October 1–7, 1808 a very important Western Conference met at Liberty Hill, Williamson County, Tennessee. Mr. Green Hill, a well-to-do planter and a devout Methodist asked them to use part of his land as a campground for the Conference. It is mentioned in Annon West's, D.D. History of Methodism that over a thousand people met for the church work there and for revival services. This Conference was important to Ford's Chapel, because the missionary James Gwinn was sent to the "Big Bend Area" in October 1808. Therefore, these two and one-half acres - more or less - have been a sacred spot since October 1808. The Rev. Gwinn in 1808 called his area the Flint