Local Historical Society Purchases 'The Church That Named Bethesda'

NORTH BETHESDA, MD — The Bethesda Historical Society has purchased the historic Bethesda Meeting House — described as “the Church That Named Bethesda” — at what is now 9400 Rockville Pike.

A new entity, the Bethesda Meeting House Foundation, was formed to take ownership of the property and oversee the restoration and future use of the church and adjacent parsonage that occupy it, the Bethesda Historical Society said Monday.

The meeting house and parsonage sit on a hill overlooking Rockville Pike, just north of the National Institutes of Health campus. The first meeting house on the site was built in 1820 by the Bethesda Presbyterian Church. After fire destroyed the building in 1849, the present meeting house was built and the parsonage added.

“The Meeting House is by far the most important historic building near downtown Bethesda and literally embodies the history of the community,” Bethesda Meeting House Foundation Hank Levine said in a statement.

The meeting house served as the town’s first post office in 1852 and was occupied by a Confederate cavalry during a July 1864 Civil War skirmish in what is now downtown Bethesda.

The building is notable for its rare “slave gallery,” where enslaved persons were permitted to worship. The meeting house and parsonage are listed in the National Register of Historic Places and were among the original sites on the 1979 Montgomery County Master Plan for Historic Preservation.

The last congregation to occupy the meeting house, Temple Hill Baptist Church, stopped worshiping there several years ago.

The buildings have not been maintained, and extensive restoration work will be necessary. Local real estate and historic preservation groups have pledged their time to restore the buildings.

The Bethesda Meeting House Foundation also is exploring the possibility of partnering with a local nonprofit group to use the site.