In August of 1878 Pinkney James Bennett paid $100 for ¾ of an acre, from a tract of land called Hawkins Fancy, that belonged to Thomas G. and Nellie Kelly. Construction on the church began immediately and was finished in October of 1878. A dedication ceremony was held at the church which was named St. James Methodist Episcopal Church South, on October 27, 1878. It was named St. James to recognize the leadership of Pinkney James Bennett. In 1939 the 3 Methodist denominations, Methodist Protestant, Methodist Episcopal, and Methodist Episcopal South merged and became Methodist. The church was now called St. James Methodist Church.
Over the years the church grew in membership. In 1946 an addition was added which consisted of 3 Sunday school rooms and the hall in the basement. In 1957 St. James purchased 0.4078 acres of the land for cemetery use from Frances Magin. In 1958 another addition was added on, which consisted of 3 more Sunday school rooms, the kitchen in the basement and basement bathrooms. In 1978 an additional 0.9335 acres of land was donated to the church for cemetery use by David and Iris Shaw. This parcel of land is not currently being used for burials and is the open area that lies between Marston Road and Glenvue Drive.
In 2019 attendance had declined and the remaining members decided that the church would have its last service in 2020. Meanwhile, knowing that if the church went to the Methodist Conference, it would not want the responsibility of the cemetery. The Trustees of St. James started the survey process July 2019 to split off the cemetery properties from the church property. The cemetery properties would eventually be deeded to the new cemetery corporation that would be formed. On November 19th a charge conference was held, and the members present voted to close the congregation and gift the church property to Wesley Freedom UMC so that ministry would continue. On January 5, 2020, St. James held its last service.
The cemetery corporation was officially formed on February 24, 2020, consisting of 3 trustees. On March 20th, 2020, the cemetery properties were deeded to St. James Cemetery at Dennings Inc. Also, on this date the church property was deeded over to Wesley Freedom UMC.
In June of 2022 at our annual meeting Tammy Ray from Wreaths Across America attended to speak to us about how the program works and would we be interested in participating. Everyone in attendance agreed that we would like to get on board with this. She explained what we needed to do to get our cemetery registered to perform ceremonies every December. We registered and were accepted into the program and held our 1st Wreaths Across America Ceremony December 17, 2022. We continue to have one every year in December.
Our cemetery has roughly 350 people buried in it. 29 of those are Veterans. There are several people who are buried in the cemetery that were interred even before the Church property was purchased. William Demmitt was buried in 1837. Hampton Gosnell was buried in 1860.