Eyler's Valley Chapel is located in northwestern Fredrick County, Maryland and is overseen by the directors of Eyler's Valley Chapel Incorporated.
Our purpose is simple. We seek to give honor to God and His only begotten Son our Savior Jesus Christ. We assemble each Sunday evening at 7:00 PM to worship and let the Holy Spirit mold us into His image. We are a place of refuge for the weary. A place to serve for the strong.
We hold the Bible to be the Word of God and the final source for doctrine and conduct for living the Christian life.
For a schedule and times of services click on the Schedule of Events page.
A brief history of Eyler's Valley Chapel
In the late 1700’s Frederick Eyler, a Swiss immigrant along with his brother purchased a large tract of farm and timberland in northern Frederick County, Maryland. They named the settlement Eyler’s Valley. Frederick and his descendants were very prosperous farmers and respected citizens. One of Frederick’s sons, Charles, became a County Commissioner during the middle 1800’s.
During the late 1700’s and early 1800’s there were a group of “Unsectarian Ministers” from various denominations who held great evangelistic union meetings throughout Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. Ministers such as William Otterbein, Martin Boehm, Christian Newcomer and Martin Krider worked together bringing great revival with many souls coming to Christ. They would later form the United Brethren in Christ Church. During these revivals some of those converted were Jacob Weller Jr., son of the founder of Mechanicstown, Maryland (now called Thurmont), Frederick Eyler and Yost Harbaugh, founder of Harbaugh Valley. From these men’s life changing encounter with Christ eventually came Weller’s Church in Thurmont, Eyler’s Valley Church in Eyler’s Valley and Otterbein Church in Harbaugh Valley.
For many years those living in Eyler’s Valley worshipped in several of the homes as well as the Hampton Valley Schoolhouse. On October 24th 1854, Articles of Incorporation were filed with the State of Maryland for Eyler’s Valley Chapel as an organized body of worshippers of the United Brethren in Christ Church. The trustees named in that document were Benjamin Eyler, Joshua Warrenfeltz, Aaron Eyler, Levi Boring and George Stokes. On April 23rd, 1856, Christian Lantz and his wife Catherine sold a piece of property to the Trustees of Eyler’s Valley Chapel for the sum of five dollars. In the summer of 1857 a stone Chapel was erected on the property. On March 24th, 1894 Christian and Catherine Lantz sold an additional piece of property to the Trustees of Eyler’s Valley Chapel to be used as a cemetery for the sum of fifteen dollars.
In 1892 the Chapel was re-named Dodge Chapel in honor of Mrs. Mary Dodge, a wealthy lady of Baltimore who made a generous bequest to the church for it’s perpetual upkeep. Both the valley and the Chapel saw times of prosperity and challenge over the following fifty years. During that time the United Brethren in Christ Church as a denomination went through a merger and became the Evangelical United Brethren Church (EUB). The Chapel closed on a few occasions and sometime during that period was again called Eyler’s Valley Chapel. The Chapel closed as an EUB church for the final time during 1945. It remained closed except for annual homecoming services held by former parishioners, many who had moved out of the valley.
In 1969, at the annual homecoming service, the minister of one of the United Methodist Churches in Thurmont was in attendance. A member of his congregation, John Hahn, and former member of the Chapel back in the 1930’s had invited him. Reverend Hamrick, being a history buff, gladly accepted. That day he volunteered to hold services at the Chapel on Sunday afternoons if any would come. Earlier in the 1960’s there had been a merger between the EUB Church and the Methodist Church to become the United Methodist Church. Reverend Hamrick obtained permission to reopen the church for non-denominational services. On the first Sunday in September of 1969 the Chapel began regular services again for the first time in over twenty-four years. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, volunteers cleared the grounds and refurbished the Chapel and to this day see that the chapel is maintained and ready for worship each week.
