Biography

Reily Memorial United Methodist Church was located at 4571 Keller Drive, Collinston, Louisiana.

The first record of a church in the Gum Swamp area (as Collinston was then called) was the mention of an Oak Ridge charge on October 11, 1873. They may have met in homes and at the old Patton School, led by the pastor at that time Rev. George Jackson. In 1877 a committee met to decide on a location (“at the foot of the hills”) to build a church and parsonage in the Good Hope community. After James D. Howell donated six acres of land to the church, they built a church 40 by 32 feet in size. The building, which also served as a school, was located near the entrance of the present Kalorama Nature Preserve.

On May 28, 1894, John Boatner Reily donated a 50x100’ lot in Collins to the church. He was asked to leave the church in Bastrop for dancing, so he wanted a church that he could attend and still be allowed to dance. The nearby Good Hope Church had been tom down and the lumber was brought to Collins to use for the new church.

A new church was built in 1925-26. The old church was sold to G.W. Dalgam who moved it one block away from the site. It is now a residence. Various fundraisers were held and the new church was built by the membership. They even waited for the train every Monday and would ask the salesmen for donations. The new church was named after the donor of the property. The Baptist congregation used the building to meet on Friday nights.

In 1940, John Reily’ s younger brother William offered to give the church $10 for every dollar they raised. After they raised $1000, he gave the church $10,000. After acquiring a lot from Mrs. Cora Harper, the church property expanded to 130x100’ in size. The 1926 church was moved to the new lot and used as the education building. The new church, a copy of an English chapel, was built on the comer of the lot.

The church bought a lot for $125 in 1944. With the congregation supplying the labor, materials from a house donated by William B. Reily were used to construct a parsonage on the lot. That parsonage was eventually sold in 1977.

Reily Memorial United Methodist Church disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church in May 2023.

Source: Timothy Hebert, “The Historical Register of the Louisiana Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church,” (Louisiana: Louisiana Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, 2004), page MO-20.

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