It had started simply enough, with a lesson plan and discussion in Howard Stoake’s Sunday School class. The first sign of trouble ahead was when the class ran long, causing the assembled Sunday Schoolers to miss both the 9:00 and 11:00 services at Deerton Methodist. From there, the flames spread to each household, carried as embers in the heads of every member of Stoake’s class. Before the week was out, Stoakes had been dismissed from his position and an account of his violent quarrel with Reverend Millener had made the rounds throughout town.

Soon Deerton Methodist was as two armed camps, one united behind the ousted Stoake and the other behind Millener. The seeds planted in that Sunday School session had led many in there to embrace the doctrine of election, while those who stuck to the church’s tradition were united in their support of free will. Simply put, it was no less than a battle between predestination and free will–the same argument that has brought low theologians and churches since Augustine’s time.

In the end, there was nothing for it: Deerton Methodist was forced to split. One congregation kept the name but departed for the old Lutheran church on 6th street; the other kept the building and renamed itself Deerton Free Methodist. But the grim details of the schism would remain for years to come.