Lymanville Church wins case
Published: October 28, 2009
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Lymanville Church
A 167-year-old Susquehanna County church will be allowed to continue operating as such after a ruling last week by President Judge Kenneth Seamans.
Judge Seamans ruled on Monday (Oct. 19) against William J. and Leoda Wilson, of Springville Township, who were contending they had the rights to the Lymanville Church that stands in the middle of a field they own.
On August 6, the couple read into the record an excerpt of a deed from 1853 that suggested that if the church no longer operated as a Methodist church and were to show two years of vacancy, the original conveyance should be declared null and void.
They also introduced a long line of deeds which showed transferral of property down to the present owners and established a consistency in the wording in each deed.
The lack of consistency, however, was the plaintiffs’ downfall, according to the judge’s opinion, released last week.
Judge Seamans noted in a 13-page opinion, that the plaintiffs had not succeeded to the interest of the original 1853 grantors, William and Sarah Harkins.
He noted that the deed defining the transferral of the larger parcel of land after the Harkinses had conveyed the larger property to Samuel Taylor in 1857. The next conveyance of the larger parcel in sequence in 1864 to N.E. Sherman, had “no express reference to ‘the reservations & conditions belonging and reserved.’”
Thus, “The right of re-entry, in other words, was not expressly transmitted” to future owners
Although much of the testimony on August 6 also addressed the issue of whether no formal church activity had taken place within the confines of the Lymanville for a period of more than two years, Judge Seamans said that issue was a moot point.
He wrote, “Because we have determined that Plaintiffs have not succeeded to said reversionary interest, the question of whether the condition itself has been broken, is moot and we therefore need to address it no further.”
The building was constructed as the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Springville in 1842 but is now commonly referred to as the LymanvilleChurch.
In 1852, when the Wyoming Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church was formed, that encompassed all of SusquehannaCounty and many surrounding counties, the church naturally became a part of the new conference.
The denomination, however went through several name changes to The Methodist Church in 1939 and to The United Methodist Church in 1968.
The Wyoming Conference discontinued providing support to the LymanvilleChurch in 1998 and it was sold by the Conference's Board of Trustees to the Lynn Lymanville Community Church Inc. in 2000.
Services on Sundays around noon have taken place in the sanctuary during the warmer months of the year. Joanna Alt, a lay pastor, has served the church in the past two years.
