First United Methodist Church was designed by architect C. W. Carlton, and placed on the old home place of Vardry McBee, a saddle maker, merchant, farmer, and Clerk of Court. This classical revival-style church was dedicated on Easter Sunday, 1924.
This is the third building erected by a congregation established in 1816. Members held services for many years in a church located on the corner of South Aspen and Congress Streets about five blocks away from the current building.
Only the Old Methodist Church Cemetery remains at this site. It is 1.62 acres surrounded by a chain link fence. In 1828, Reverend James Hill, the first pastor of what is now First United Methodist Church, was the first person to be buried in the cemetery. At the time of his burial, the Methodist church was known as the Lincolnton Circuit, and it was a part of the South Carolina Conference. The last known burial was in 1944 for Nancy Elizabeth Mullen.
There are approximately 242 gravestones in the cemetery. After the last burial in 1944, interest in the cemetery declined greatly. By the second half of the twentieth century, many church members were unaware of its existence. The heavily shaded cemetery was the focus of an extensive restoration project in 2015.
First United Methodist Church is on Main Street and its cemetery on South Aspen Street are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
