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The Methodist Church
100 Huffman Avenue and Main Street
In 1885 the Methodist Church South and the Masonic Lodge purchased a brick building on Main Street. It was used until 1911 when the building was sold and the money used to purchase the present site. Built in 1912 on the corner of Huffman Avenue and Main Street, the church is one of two Gothic Revival brick churches in downtown Pikeville. The church was founded in 1840. The Methodist Church tower is three stories with a pyramidal roof. The Methodist Church has stained glass windows and exhibits a variety of window shapes including Gothic, Palladian, round arched, and rectangular, all with sandstone lintels. The windows are composed are colored quarries of glass, primarily smooth, the main window being of pebbled glass. The figures in the main window are raised or "jewelled" to appear more prominent. The leaded cames here are approximately 5/8 inch in thickness. these panes are made by firing, to a various temperature, enamel painted sections.
All but three of the windows are unique and exhibit various details of stained glass art. Among them: lozenges, quatre foils, trefoils, quarries and diapers. Seven of the windows are memorial with inscriptions to early Pikeville congregation members. The rest have memorial panels but are blank. Six of the windows are representational showing religious symbols in circles of stained glass. The quality shown in the windows varies and while some are bright and rich in design embellishments, other are somber and more simple in style. The quality of the stained glass art is judged to be the highest in the county.
It is believed that the stained glass windows were the earliest (if not the only) in this county to have been executed in Italy by Old World Craftsmen and imported to Pikeville. The church contains 22 stained glass windows that are excellent examples of the Gothic Revival stained glass. Rich in color, these windows set in wooden frames are given additional support by leaden armatures to which the leaden cames (H section) of the windows are attached by copper wires and soldered. These armatures are horizontal in all cases but one (over the main entrance door).
Documentation on these windows is sparse. Available information tends to be of the "passed on" variety. An attempt to located a Railroad shipping bill has not succeeded although the material is almost certain to have been shipped by rail, since the C & O Railroad had opened service to Pikeville in 1905 and the freight terminal is nearby.
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