Barratt′s Chapel and Museum

Chapel was built in 1780, on land donated by Philip Barratt, a prominent political figure in Kent County, Delaware. Barratt, who had recently become a Methodist, wanted to build a center for the growing Methodist movement in Delaware. Barratt's Chapel is the oldest surviving church building in the United States built by and for Methodists. The Museum of Methodism, adjacent to Barratt's Chapel,  was built in 1964 by the Peninsula-Delaware Conference.  Funding came from the sale of the closed Bethel M. E. Church on the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal which the Army Corps of Engineers needed to purchase for the widening of the canal. The Museum of Methodism contains archives of the Peninsula-Delaware Conference of The United Methodist Church.