Leal Methodist Episcopal Church

Leal, Barnes County, North Dakota 

1892 -1992 Leal, North Dakota

The Soo Line townsite of Leal (Barnes Co), ND, was platted on December 2, 1892, and filed on December 16, 1892. Leal is the Scottish word meaning "faithful and true" or the land of the faithful. Its first settlers come from the inland community of Uxbridge, who had immigrated from the Uxbridge, Ontario area. Joseph Bascom (1840-1918) moved the Uxbridge Post Office to Leal on December 28, 1892. Leal's Post Office zip code was 58459 and became a branch of Rogers on November 1, 1975. Its peak population was 105 in 1930.

Info from - back of Leal, North Dakota plate. 

Religious worship in the Leal-Uxbridge community began with the organization of the Uxbridge Union Sunday School in 1883. Church services followed in 1884 with The Rev. William Spoon, a Methodist pastor from Sanborn, conducting the services in the Uxbridge School house or in a home.

With the coming of the railroad, the village of Leal was platted to the northeast of the Uxbridge community and in 1893, the Uxbridge Union Sunday School became the Leal Union Sunday School, with meetings held in the Leal School and in the Town Hall.

February 24, 1902, marked the date of the incorporation of the Leal Methodist Episcopal Church. A church building was built and debt-free, was dedicated in 1903. By 1917 remodeling was necessary for the growing congregation, and a full basement and vestibule were added. The church was re-dedicated, again debt-free.
The only church in the Leal community, it has over the years been a center not only of worship, not only for Methodists, but Presbyterians, Baptists, Lutherans and Quakers, and a social center as well.
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Source: Barnes County History 1976 Page 300