Nineteen twenty-five marked the hundredth anniversary of the Methodist Church's work in Hawkinsville. The people called Methodists are connected with the very beginning of our city. It was in 1821 that the Georgia legislature authorized two Methodist laymen to erect a ferry line across the Ocmulgee River from land they owned in Hartford to the present site of Hawkinsville. It was a Methodist merchant that opened the first store inside the present city's incorporate limits. It was a Methodist minister that first came as a regular preacher to Hawkinsville. The First Methodist Church congregation was the first Christian church to be organized in the village. The first church edifice to be erected in Hawkinsville was that of the Methodist congregation, built prior to 1832 and located on the corner of North Dooly and First Streets. Hawkinsville was a regular preaching appointment on the Houston Circuit in 1825.