Early Churches
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The importance of churches in weaving the fabric of Chagrin Falls cannot be overestimated. The early settlers carried with them their religious beliefs. During the 1830s, when Chagrin Falls was less than 10 years old, both the Congregational and Methodist communities were meeting in village homes. By the 1850s the Congregational, Methodist, Free Will Baptist and Bible Christian denominations all had their own meeting houses in the village. The Disciples of Christ built their church on Walnut St. in 1853. The Congregational and Disciples churches combined to form the Federated Church in 1915.
These church meeting houses were the centers of social activities, serving dinners, holding concerts, lectures, political rallies and social reform meetings, in addition to providing religious instruction.
As the population grew and diversified, new denominations moved to the village to address the needs of their parishioners, including Christian Scientists, Catholics and Lutherans, who met in Township Hall until after World War II.
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