[1] Built for a Methodist congregation, the church's earliest portion was constructed in 1834; this rectangular structure forms the core of the present building.

Major changes to the building since the 1830s have included the erection of a five-sided addition on the church's northern side in 1888 and significant destruction and repairs after a 1926 lightning strike.

[2] Built of brick on a stone foundation,[3] the church features a distinctive pyramid-shaped roof above the 1888 addition.

The community was settled during the final years of the eighteenth century; the oldest graves in the church's cemetery date from the 1790s.

[3] More than forty Ross County locations are on the Register, but Wesley Chapel is the only religious building among them.