Bethesda Meeting House
The Bethesda Meeting House is a historic Presbyterian church complex in Bethesda, Montgomery County, Maryland, US. Its name became the namesake of the entire surrounding community in the 1870s. It sits on Maryland Route 355 (known as Rockville Pike at this point) just inside the Capital Beltway. It has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1977. Description
The Bethesda Meeting House property includes the 1850 meeting house itself, the mid-late 19th-century parsonage to the south, and the associated cemetery. The church is a large, wood-frame structure built in the Greek Revival "temple" form, albeit with Gothic-style windows. To the south of the church is a two-story frame Victorian parsonage built on a cruciform plan, with some Queen Anne-style embellishments. History
The church was built on the foundation of an 1820 Presbyterian church that burned down in 1849. Opened in 1850, it served as the Bethesda Presbyterian Church until 1925, when the congregation erected a new church on Wilson Lane, farther south in Bethesda. When the church moved to its new location in 1925, the trustees sold the building and  of land to Mrs. May Fitch Kelley. The Presbyterian congregation, however, retained ownership of the cemetery. Mrs. Kelley lived in the church building for many years. In 1945, the property was sold to a French Algerian Catholic missionary group called the Missionaries of Africa, commonly known as the White Fathers. In the 1950s, the property was transferred again, this time to the trustees of the Temple Hill Baptist Church. Legacy
In the 1860s, the church's pastor, Rev. Edward Henry Cumpston, began lobbying the local postmaster, Robert Franck, to rename his post office from "Darcy's Store". Franck did so in 1871, and the surrounding community took the name as well. References

Citations

Other sources
 The Spirit of Captain John, by Eugene and Edythe Clark, Carlton Press, New York, NY, 1970
 Old Bethesda by Dorce Germaine Holman and Not So Old, by Gertrude D. Bradley, Franklin Press, Gaithersburg, MD, 1956
 Bethesda: A Social History, by William M Offutt, The Innovation Game, Bethesda, MD, 1995

External links
, including photo in 1974, at Maryland Historical Trust website
Bethesda Meeting House, history of Bethesda Meeting House at allBethesda.com
Bethesda Presbyterian Church

Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Maryland
Churches completed in 1850
Greek Revival church buildings in Maryland
Queen Anne architecture in Maryland
Buildings and structures in Bethesda, Maryland
Churches in Montgomery County, Maryland
Presbyterian churches in Maryland
National Register of Historic Places in Montgomery County, Maryland