Established in 1893 as the Cabell Street Tabernacle, and later known as Cabell Street Memorial Church, this church was designated as Moseley Memorial United Methodist Church in 1930, in memory of its great benefactor and early leader, Edward Gannaway Moseley. 

A devout Methodist, E.G. Moseley, like so many Danvillians a century ago, also was able to share in the exuberant tobacco prosperity and boundless optimism which Danville enjoyed at that time. In 1902 he built his home on fashionable Main Street, a tall, rambling, late-Queen Anne- style dwelling with Colonial Revival details which still stands at 840 Main Street. 

Respected and revered throughout his life for civic, community and spiritual leadership, he remained a driving force in the Cabell Street congregation, from its beginnings as a Sunday School in a former tobacco factory, on through decades of growth which led members to build the present Tudor Gothic style church on the corner of Berryman Avenue at Colquohoun Street in the late I 920s. Because of his leadership and largesse, the congregation named the church in his honor posthumously. The imposing red-brick church with white trim, designed by). Bryant Heard, a fellow Methodist and member at Main Street Church, dominates an important corner in what is now the Tobacco (Warehouse) Historic District. Its contractor, C.M. Weber also was from Danville.

Among its most impressive qualities is the building’s distinction as practically the only one of Danville’s “older” churches that was constructed all-of-a-piece. The entire complex—the sanctuary, Sunday School rooms, fellowship hall, and other spaces of the church all were put up in one building campaign in 1929-30. This was an expensive undertaking, especially near the end of I 920s prosperity, and it is testimony to the devotion of its members who lived principally in the neighborhood several blocks all around the church. While not the community’s wealthiest, these citizens were among its most motivated and dedicated to the outreach of what became Moseley Memorial United Methodist Church. 

The sanctuary reinforces the Tudor-Gothic styling of the exterior, With its light-painted walls contrasting with dark- stained wood trusses and timbers, the interior recalls the sturdy, worshipful simplicity of earlier chapels both in England and at traditional American parochial schools and colleges built early in this century. A focal point of the sanctuary is the magnificent stained-glass windows, crafted by the High Point Glass and Decorative Company of High Point, North Carolina. Each window, drawing from religious paintings such as those by Hendrick Hofmann and Bernhard Plockhorst, of Germany, and Carl Bloch, of Denmark, depicts an aspect of the life, ministry and nature of Christ. The chapel windows, created for that space more than a quarter-century after those in the sanctuary, were designed by A.W. Klemme, Jr., son of the High Point stained glass artisan who created those in the sanctuary. This company, established in 1905, remains in business today.

Like the rest of the accoutrements of this church, the fine M.P. Moller pipe organ was installed at the time of the building’s completion, in 1930.