Floating Bethel

The Floating Bethel was a river going vessel that planted churches and served as a platform for the missionary work of Rev.

George T. Clayton, his wife Lizzie, B.F. Roe and Herbert M. Riggle[1] in the early Church of God movement during the 1890s.

[2] Clayton bought a sunken barge[3] and for several years conducted evangelistic work on the Ohio river.

[6] Its form was described by Lucy S. Furman in The Century Magazine, December 1894: The Floating Bethel burned down before it got out of the Ohio River.

It caught fire and was completely destroyed in 1898 or 1899 according to different sources, yet timbers were salvaged from the wreck and were used in the construction of two homes in the Park View section of Moundsville.