Historic Clinton Church Celebrates 160 years

June 11, 2025 by Ben Pounds

Asbury United Methodist Church has witnessed history important to Clinton and the world over its 160 years.

The Rev. John C. Tate founded the church on May 29, 1865 and served as its first minister, member Renee McCleary stated. Tate was a freed but formerly enslaved man from Granger County. But the church then was in a different building which burned in 1947. The Rev. C.L. Willis led the rebuilding of the church. Workers finished its current brick structure in 1950.

“Even though it’s a small church with a small congregation, it still has survived quite a bit,” said McCleary, a former Clinton resident. She still works to promote the church and its work, even from her current home in Illinois. She called its staying power over 160 years “incredible for such a small church especially an African American Church.”

The church, located at 405 West Broad Street, witnessed the desegregation of Clinton High School by its first Black students in 1956. McCleary listed Asbury UMC’s Bobby Cain as the first Black student to graduate from an integrated public school in the South on May 17, 1957.

“It impacted the entire community,” McCleary said, adding that many churches at the time came together to help. “It took a lot of faith and prayer to get through that.”

The church celebrated that anniversary on Sunday, May 25. The Rev. Lee Radford, both spoke and played the trombone. Anderson County Mayor Terry Frank read a proclamation. Many churches including Mount Sinai Baptist Church in Clinton, Haven Chapel UMC in Powell, New Victory UMC in Harriman, Cowan Chapel UMC in Kingsport, Brown New Hope Baptist Church of Blaine and even Second Baptist Church of Wheaton, Illinois.

“It seems like a dream that a congregation could hold together for 160 years, but they have,” Frank told The Courier News after the event. “And they so deserved to be honored, especially for the example they’ve set for commitment and faith.

“The families, the songs, the scriptural messages were all beautiful, and a special heartwarming treat was Pastor Radford playing a hymn on the trombone.  It was a beautiful, uplifting day that I’ll simply never forget,” she said.

McCleary lived and went to school in Clinton before leaving for Knoxville for high school and then finding a job in the Chicago suburbs. However, she said, Asbury UMC still has her support. She said her commitment came from “the love of Christ and the fact that he gives me things to give back to that church.”

Her mother, Diane Moore, a CHS graduate, currently lives in Knoxville but she’s stayed with Asbury UMC since she was a teenager, possibly 67 years by her recollection. She said she’s never wanted to leave and it’s where God wants her to be.

“A lot of people say when they come into the church they can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit,” she said.

Moore said membership numbers have declined over the time she’s attended. But the church in her view does well for a small congregation. She said she admires the members’ ability to help each other with things like groceries, rides to hospitals and just checking in on each other.

“It’s the will of God. What he would have us do,” she said. “Some people don’t have family. The church family is their family.”