Smithville Church was dedicated on May 30, 1840. It is the oldest standing Methodist Church in Calvert County.
The community surrounding Smithville Church was originally known as Smithville, no doubt because the Smith families were the large landowners. When the post office came, it seems that there was already a Smithville in Maryland, so another name was needed. The story is told that a member of the church, a cobbler who lived with the Drurys, proposed that the town be named Dunkirk for his native village in England. (That Dunkirk is in the county of Kent, about seven miles from Canterbury.) When the church was built on land donated by Fielder Bowie Smith, it was named Smithville, recognizing the original name of the town.
