Important archive of 31 documents associated with the formative decades of John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church of Philadelphia, an early African American congregation established in the 1830s. The group includes 26 receipts dated between 1843 and 1863 recording expenses borne by the church and its trustees for construction, maintenance, and improvements; a manuscript architectural rendering, ca. 1844, showing proposed designs for the church façade; a June 1849 notice from the Philadelphia Board of Health to “The Trustees of the John Wesley Col[ore]d Church,” stating that “the Board will not permit any future internments in the ground in the rear of their church”; and an 1862 indenture transferring to five named trustees of the John Wesley M.E. Church ownership of a parcel in “The Lebanon Cemetery of Philadelphia.” Altogether, the documents offer a vivid and unusually granular record of the early life of a growing Black congregation and may substantially enrich the documentary history of this important church. 

A history of Philadelphia’s Tindley Temple United Methodist Church suggests that John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church grew out of Zoar Methodist Episcopal Church, when several families living south of Market Street began meeting for worship in their homes because, as the later account notes, “the walk to Zoar for south Philadelphia members became too taxing.” In 1837, this group acquired a modest building on Bainbridge Street, then called Shippen Street, just east of South Eighth Street, establishing the new congregation known as John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church. The documents offered here appear to illuminate the congregation’s early efforts either to construct a new house of worship or to enlarge and improve the property acquired in 1837. A later source, A Semi-Centenary Discourse...Also An Appendix Containing Sketches of All the Colored Churches in Philadelphia (Philadelphia, 1857), offers a fuller description of the church: “This church is in Shippen St. between Seventh and Eighth Sts. It is a small brick building 45 feet long by 23 feet wide...There are at present 100 members. It will seat about 200 persons. This property is valued at $4,000.” 

The documents spanning 1843 to 1863 reflect a period of deliberate investment in the congregation’s brick-and-mortar presence. Particularly striking is the hand-drawn façade rendering, measuring 12 x 7 1/2 in., which appears to show either two elevations of the building or two alternate concepts for its front. A notation at lower right reads, “The uper patern would not have the [?] window but would have the stone in place.” The “stone” likely refers to a commemorative panel visible at the upper center of the left-hand design and bearing the inscription “John Wesley M E Church fou[nded?] 1844.” Two manuscript notations, one on the face of the drawing and one on the verso, record a payment of $7.50 received by William Scott on 7 January 1845. 

The receipts furnish equally valuable evidence. The earliest, dated January 1843 and addressed to the Trustees of the John Wesley Church, confirms that the congregation was active before 1844. A partly printed receipt from Stevenson & Maris, Lumber Merchants, Philadelphia, dated 23 September 1844, records payment for joists supplied by “Mr. W. Pruitt for John Wesley Church,” demonstrating that construction efforts were actively underway that year. Later receipts document additional improvements and ongoing maintenance, including charges for gas, cords of wood, “making and hanging double gate and to putting two Balusters in fence,” “making & Hanging a pair of shutters,” and “plastering church on Shippen Street below eighth.” Many also preserve the names of individual trustees responsible for the payments. Together, they provide an unusually detailed glimpse into the church’s growth, the artisans and tradesmen employed in its service, and the lay leadership that sustained it. 

Of particular importance are the documents relating to burial. In nineteenth-century Philadelphia, African Americans often faced exclusion from white cemeteries, and primary burial options for both enslaved and free Black people long remained potter’s fields and almshouse grounds. This archive offers rare primary evidence that John Wesley M.E. Church maintained burial provisions of its own. The 1849 notice from the Board of Health, signed by clerk Samuel Marks, explicitly confirms the existence of a cemetery “in the rear of their church,” while the 1862 indenture records the acquisition of specified sections and lot numbers in Lebanon Cemetery for use by the church. Because records relating to burial grounds associated with Black Philadelphia churches are scarce, these documents are of exceptional documentary interest. 

Two additional documents accompany the archive, though their relationship to the core group is uncertain: a manuscript list titled “Persons owing for Basement,” naming thirteen individuals and amounts due; and a 10-page petition dated 15 January 1870, addressed “To the Managers of the Church Extension Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church,” from the Building Committee of the M.E. Church in Vassalboro, Rockland District, East Maine Conference, Kennebec County, Maine. 

[African Americana, African American History, Black History, Slavery, Enslavement, Abolition, Emancipation] [Manuscripts, Documents, Letters, Ephemera, Signatures, Autographs]