Pennsylvania native John Herrington migrated west to eastern Ohio following the American Revolution, in which he served as a drummer boy.

Upon settling in present-day Carroll County, he began farming and preaching Methodism among the pioneer settlers, and he became one of the area's preëminent early religious leaders.

[1] Constructed of sandstone,[1] the church was seemingly built under the direction of a local black craftsman, Frank Dunmore, who may also have been responsible for Herrington's house.

[1] Religious properties are ordinarily not eligible for addition to the Register,[4] but the Herrington complex was included because of its profound significance in local history.

Few other extant properties are so closely connected to the settlement of Carroll County and the development of its religious institutions (particularly because of Herrington's dual rôle as a farmer and a preacher), and the well-preserved stonework of the two buildings represents an incomparable example of pre-Civil War stone vernacular construction in the area.