J. Gordon Melton
African American Methodism in the M. E. Tradition:
The Case of Sharp Street (Baltimore)
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NOTES:
1. Cf. Donald G. Matthews, Slavery and Methodism: A Chapter in American Morality, 1780-1845 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965); William B. Gravely, William B., "Early Methodism and Slavery: The Roots of a Tradition," Wesleyan Quarterly Review 2 (May 1965): 301-15; Lewis B. Purifoy, "The Methodist Anti-Slavery Tradition, 1784-1844," Methodist History 4 (July 1966): 3-16; William B. Gravely, "Methodist Preachers, Slavery, and Caste: Types of Social Concern in Antebellum America," Duke Divinity School Review 34 (Autumn 1969): 209-29; David H. Bradley, "Francis Asbury and the Development of African Churches in America," Methodist History (1971): 3-29; W. Harrison Daniel, "The Methodist Episcopal Church and the Negro in the Early National period," Methodist History (1973).
2. CF., for example, Grant Shockley, "Negro Leaders in American Methodism." The Garrett Tower 12, 1 (December 1966): 3-12; J. H. Graham, J. H., Black United Methodists: Retrospect and Prospect (New York: Vantage Press, 1979); and Julius E. Del Pino, "Blacks in the United Methodist Church from Its Beginning to 1968," Methodist History 19, 1 (October 1980): 3-20.
3. Among the more general items of particular relevance to the situation in Baltimore are: J. Thomas Scharf, The Chronicles of Baltimore: Being a CompleteHistory of "Baltimore Town" and "Baltimore City" from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (Baltimore: Turnbull Brothers, 1874); James M. Wright, The Free Negro in Maryland, 1634-1860 (New York; Colombia University, 1921, rpt.: New York: Octagon Books, 1971); T. Stephen Whitman, The Price of Freedom: Slavery and Manumission in Baltimore and Early National Maryland (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1997); Christopher Phillips, Freedom's Port : The African American Community of Baltimore, 1790-1860 ( Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1997); and Leroy Graham, Baltimore: The Nineteenth Century Black Capital (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1982 ).
4. This story is recounted in James A. Handy, Scraps of African Methodist Episcopal History (Philadelphia: A. M. E. Book Concern, 1902). Posted at: http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/handy/menu.html.
5. J. A. Handy, "On the Introduction of African Methodism in Maryland." In Benjamin W. Arnett, ed. The Centennial Budget (N.p.: Benjamin W. Arnett, 1888): 273.
6. Cf. John Atkinson, The Beginnings of the Wesleyan Movement in America and the Establishment Therein of Methodism (New York: Hunt & Eaton, 1896); J. B. Wakeley, Lost Chapters Recovered from the Early History of American Methodism (New York: Wilbur B. Ketcham, 1889).
7. Letter from Boardman to John Wesley, November 4, 1769, reproduced in Atkinson, op. cit., p. 248-49.
8. Pilmore, The Journal of Joseph Pilmore: Methodist Itinerant. ed. by Frederick E. Maser and Howard T. Maag (Philadelphia, PA: Historical Society of the Philadelphia Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, 1969): 137.
9. Quoted from Rankin's unpublished journal, the original of which is located in the Library of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
10. Gough's story is recounted in John Lednum, A History of the Rise of Methodism in America (Philadelphia, PA: The Author, 1859).
11. Originally printed in 1784 in the Arminian Magazine, the Methodist magazine printed in London, and was reprinted in Atkinson, op.cit., p. 192-93.
12. For the complete story, see Donald G. Matthews, Slavery and Methodism: A Chapter in American Morality, 1780-1845 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1965).
13. The dating of Allen's walkout in Philadelphia has been challenged in recent years following the discovery that the changes in the seating arrangement at St. George's that provoked the problem did not occur until 1792. Dating the problem to June 1792 also fits the incident into other related occurrences. Cf. Milton C. Sernett, Black Religion and American Evangelicalism: White Protestants, Plantation Missions, and the Flowering of Negro Christianity (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1975) and Dee E. Andrews, The Methodists and Revolutionary America, 1760-1800. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000).
14. At this point one encounters a significant problem because of the manner in which American Methodism was organized at this time. Officially, through the first decades of the nineteenth century, Methodists recognized one church (or charge) in Baltimore, and records were kept with that understanding. The MEC Conference annually assigned two ministers to Baltimore. In Baltimore, there were several building that served as preaching points and worship centers, the oldest being the Lovely Lane church. Through the 1890s the African members met together for worship and were known informally as the "Colored Methodist Society." After 1802, the church building on Sharp Street became the society's home base, but there were always groups meeting in other locations. Through the first decade of the nineteenth century, the Black membership in Baltimore also began to be referred to as the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a designation that appears on the 1802 deed for the Sharp Street property.
In writing about African Methodists, a confusion arises because the official designation of the Baltimore Methodists in the official Church literature leaves unclear that various groups in the church were organized around a meetinghouse, while other groups met regularly in members' homes or places of business. This confusion is particularly evident in the efforts of various partisan histories tracing the origins of Sharp Street or Bethel AME in Baltimore. Both churches share a common history prior to 1814, but draw on slightly different aspects of that history in presenting their credentials. See, for example, Bettye C. Thomas, "History of the Sharp Street Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church, 1987-1920," in One Hundred Seventy-fifth Anniversary Journal of Sharp Street Memorial United Methodist Church ( Baltimore, 1977).
15. In 1801, for the sum of $870, Jacob Gillard and Richard Russell purchased land at Forrest Lane and Conwago Street for the use of the African Methodist Episcopal church, the term "African" being the designation for all the local Black members of the Baltimore Methodist community. It appears that this purchase was a venture in real estate speculation, the purchasers hoping to resale the land at a later date for a profit.
16. Little information is actually available on Coker from 1801 until he reemerges in 1808 and is ordained by Asbury. At some point in this period, probably closer to 1802 that 1808, he was bale to surface and become the school's primary instructor. See Graham, op cit., pp. 63-77.
17. Daniel Coker, A Dialogue between a Virginian and an African Minister (Baltimore: Benjamin Edes, 1810). Text reproduced in Dorothy Porter, comp. & ed., Negro Protest Pamphlets; a Compendium (New York, Arno Press, 1969) and Richard Newman and Patrick Rael, eds. Pamphlets of Protest: an Anthology of Early African-American Protest Literature, 1790-1860 (New York : Routledge, 2001).
18. [David Smith], Biography of the Rev. David Smith, of the A. M. E. Church Being a Complete History, Embracing Over Sixty Year's Labor in the Advancement of the Redeemer's Kingdom on Earth Including "The History of the Origin and Development of Wilberforce University." (Xenia, OH: Xenia Gazette Office, 1881).
21. On the situation in Wilmington, see Lewis V. Baldwin, Invisible Strands in African Methodism: A History of the African Union Methodist Protestant and Union American Methodist Episcopal Churches, 1805-1980 (Methuen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1983) and Joseph R. Waters, "Ezion Methodist Episcopal Church," in John D. C. Hanna, ed., The Centennial Services of Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church, Wilmington, Delaware, October 13-20, 1889 (Wilmington, DE: Delaware Printing Company, 1889): 172-77. Spencer would consider but reject joining his work to that of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
22. Gillard was Coker's father-in-law. See Graham, op. cit., 72.
23. This account by J. A. Handy was reprinted by Benjamin W. Arnett in the Centennial Budget (1887), p.272-273. Handy was a prominent member of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and a member of it Baltimore Conference. A more expanded account of these events is found in Handy's Scraps of African Methodist Episcopal History (Philadelphia: M. E. Book Concern, 1902).
24. A copy of the classes and leadership of the Black members in Baltimore in 1815 has survived. It indicates that of six local preachers, three (including Coker) left, as did two of the ten exhorters and but a single class leader.
25. Harden would later become an AME minister in New York City.
26. Harden, Pierce, Waters and Williams, along with David Smith, constituted the core of the soon to be organized Baltimore Conference of the AME Church.
27. There has been much speculation about why Coker refused the bishop's chair. Some have attributed to his relatively light skin, others to his perception that it was Allen's right as the instigator of the national organizational effort. See Graham, op.cit., 73; Phillips, op. cit., 134-35.
28. Cited in Phillips, op.cit., 125, and Graham, op.cit., 74-75.
29. On Nat Turner's Methodist roots and the role the church played in his revolt, see Randolph Lewis, "Nathaniel Turner: Christian Martyrdom in Southampton," posted at http://www.nathanielturner.com/nathanielturner2.htm.
30. David Walker, Walker's Appeal in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, To the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America. Third and Last Edition, with Additional Notes, Corrections, &c. (Boston: The Author, 1830).
31. A summary of the Story of the may Street congregation is found at the Boston African-American National Historic Site posted by the U.S. Park Service at http://www.nps.gov/boaf/topics.htm.
32. The U.S. Gazette (Philadelphia): August 24, 1824; Quoted in Gérard Alphonse Férère, "Haiti and the Diaspora: New historical, Cultural and Economic Frontiers." 1999. Posted at http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti-archive/msg00868.html.
33.Coker's relationship to the church is somewhat obscure for the next few years. In 1817, he was not given an appointment as a preacher by the Baltimore Conference because of "rumors" about his conduct. He was reinstated in 1818, but was still in obvious tension with the leadership in both Baltimore and in Philadelphia (over the episcopal election).
35. Watkins continued as a leader at Sharp Street into the 1840s, but around 1844 he was caught up in the Millerite enthusiasm concerning the predicted end of the world. He was dropped from the role of preachers at Sharp Street and gradually faded into obscurity. In 1852 he moved to Canada and died there in 1858. Watkins eventual fate may be one reason that he was largely forgotten in later years at Sharp Street. See Graham, op.cit., 93-146.
36. The Edmonson family story is told in John H. Paynter, Fugitives of the Pearl (Washington DC: Associated Publishers 1930) and summarized in Mary Kay Ricks, "A Passage to Freedom," The Washington Post Magazine (February 17, 2002): 21-36, posted at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/national/horizon/aug98/pearl.htm.