In 1839, in Centre County, Pennsylvania, 48 adults and children organized into a religious group headed by John Seybert, bishop of the Evangelical Church and John Folgate, a prominent farmer. They then migrated to this area by Conestoga wagon, then by steamer down the Ohio and up the Mississippi to Savanna, Illinois. In 1843, presiding elder, Samuel Baumgartner acquired land in Buckeye Township north of Cedarville. They organized the first church of the Evangelical Church on a plot of ground on what is not Illinois Route 26, 8.5 miles north of Freeport. (The site is now a rest area.) The congregation dedicated their church in May of 1850 as Zion Church. Their pastor served the community around Afolkey as well, meeting in the SOuth Afolkey schoolhouse. On March 6th, 1854, property in Afolkey was purchased for $30, and the Zion Church moved to become the new Afolkey church. A new, and still current, building was erected on the site in 1878. In 1932, the congregation joined with the Zion United Brethren Church in Orangeville as a single charge. The Evangelical Association and the United Brethren denominations merged nationally in 1948. In 1968, the EUB denomination merged with the Methodist Episcopal denomination to become the United Methodist Church, so the Afolkey Church, too, became the Afolkey Bethel United Methodist Church still meeting in that building erected in 1878. (Taken from the 2005 Membership Directory)