The early Negro churches in the District of Columbia were Methodist
and Baptist. The rise of numerous churches of these sects in
contradistinction to those of other denominations may be easily
accounted for by the fact that in the beginning the Negroes were
earnestly sought by the Methodists and Baptists because white persons
of high social position at first looked with contempt upon these
evangelical denominations; but when in the course of time the poor
whites who had joined the Methodist church accumulated wealth and some
of them became aristocratic slaveholders themselves, they assumed such
a haughty attitude toward the Negroes that the increasing race hate
made their presence so intolerable that the independent church
movement among the Negro Methodists and Baptists was the only remedy
for their humiliation. The separation of the Negro Methodists was made
possible at a much earlier date in the District of Columbia, when
Richard Allen had set the example by his protest against
discrimination in the Methodist church, of Philadelphia, which
culminated in the establishment of the distinct Negro denomination,
and also when the Zionites in New York City, led by James Varick, had
separated from the Methodists there for similar reasons. It was not
until the time of the critical period of the slavery agitation,
however, that practically all of the Protestant churches provided
separate pews and separate galleries for Negroes and so rigidly
enforced the rules of segregation that there was a general exodus of
the Negroes, in cities of the border States, from the Protestant
churches.[1] The District of Columbia had the same upheaval.
The records show that among the Methodists the alienation developed
sooner than in any of the other churches. "As early as 1820,"
according to an investigator, "the colored members of the Ebenezer
Church on Fourth Street, East, near Virginia Avenue, erected a log
building in that vicinity, not far from the present Odd Fellow's
lodge, for their social, religious meetings and Sabbath school. About
the same time some of the leading members among them, George Bell and
George Hicks, became dissatisfied with their treatment, withdrew, and
organized a church in connection with the African Methodist Episcopal
church. At first they worshipped in Basil Sim's Rope-walk, First
Street east, near Pennsylvania Avenue, but subsequently in Rev. Mr.
Wheat's school-house on Capitol Hill, near Virginia Avenue. They
finally purchased the old First Presbyterian Church at the foot of
Capitol Hill, later known as the Israel Bethel Colored Methodist
Episcopal Church. Some years thereafter other members of the old
Ebenezer Church, not liking their confined quarters in the gallery,
and otherwise discontented, purchased a lot on the corner of C Street
south and Fifth Street east, built a house of worship, and organized
the "Little Ebenezer Methodist Episcopal Church."[2]
About the year 1825 a third colonization from the original Ebenezer
Church took place. One grievance among others was that the Negro
members were dissatisfied with their white pastors because they
declined to take the Negro children into their arms when administering
the rites of baptism. In 1839 this alienation developed into an open
rupture, when thirteen class leaders and one exhorter left the mother
church, and, after purchasing a lot on the Island, erected a house and
formed a Negro church, independent of the Methodist Episcopal body,
under the name of the Wesley Zion Church, and employed a Negro
preacher. Among the prominent men in this separation were Enoch
Ambush, the well-known schoolmaster, and Anthony Bowen, who for many
years was an estimable employee in the Department of the Interior.[3]
Mr. Bowen served as a local preacher for forty years, and under his
guidance St. Paul's Negro Church on the Island was organized, at first
worshipping in E Street Chapel."[3a]
The white Methodists of Georgetown elbowed their Negro membership out
of their meeting house, but for fourteen years, that is, until 1830,
they kept no written church records except a list of this one sold to
Georgia, another to Carolina, a third to Louisiana, and others to
different parts--annals befitting the time and place, and a
searchlight on conditions then prevailing at the National Capitol and
elsewhere south of the Mason and Dixon line. In 1830 the membership
was large and much spirituality was manifested. White ministers of
more than local note were anxious to serve these people. At the
instance of one of them, Mr. Roszel, the church was first called Mount
Zion Methodist Episcopal Church, because it was located on a hill. The
feasibility of having Negro ministers to preside over Negro churches
was proposed in 1849 and was a fruitful theme for several years.[4] In
fact, it was due to this effort that the organization of Union Wesley
A. M. E., the John Wesley, and Ebenezer Churches followed. John Brent,
a member of Mt. Zion, led in the first named movement, and Clement
Beckett, another reformer, espoused the organization of Ebenezer in
1856, as a church "for Negroes and by Negroes."[5]
The beginnings of the Israel Colored Methodist Episcopal Church
centered around the evangelical activity of David Smith, a native of
Baltimore, the most energetic of individual forces in the organization
of the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in the city of
Washington. The presence of a Negro preacher was objectionable to many
Negroes themselves. As early as 1821 Mr. Smith was assigned to
Washington but his coming was the signal for personal attack, and he
was mobbed by members of his own race, communicants of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, who were opposed to the African Methodists. He
persisted, however, and having secured an old school house for $300,
entered upon his work with such zeal and energy that he commanded
success. Among the men and women active in the first efforts were
Scipio Beans, George Simms, Peter Schureman, George Hicks, Dora Bowen,
William Costin, William Datcher, William Warren and George Bell, one
of the three colored men who fifteen years before had erected a
building for a Negro school.
Israel promptly became a member of the Baltimore Conference, one of
the oldest conferences of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The
first Negro conference to meet in Washington was held in Israel during
the administration of Andrew Jackson. Its assembly caused a sensation
and gave the church and the denomination a standing surpassing that of
all other Negro churches in the community. It was also largely through
the personalities of the ministers in charge of Israel that its
influence on its congregation and through them on the community must
be judged. Among those in the period of its African Methodist
affiliation were David Smith, Clayton Durham, John and William
Cornish, James A. Shorter, Daniel A. Payne, Samuel Watts, Jeremiah R.
V. Thomas, Henry M. Turner, William H. Hunter, George T. Watkins,
James H. A. Johnson, and finally Jacob M. Mitchell, the last of the
African Methodist Episcopal pastors at Israel. Smith and Durham were
colleagues of Richard Allen; William Cornish was in the antislavery
struggle; Hunter and Turner served as chaplains in the Union Army; and
Payne, Wayman, Shorter and Turner became bishops of the African
Methodist Episcopal Church.
The career of Bishop Payne is widely known, but some incidents in his
pastorate deserve emphasis. Under a prevailing law he had to secure a
bond of one thousand dollars before he could remain in the District of
Columbia and officiate as a minister. The building being without pews
and the people too poor to buy them, Payne, who had learned the trade
of a carpenter, bought tools, threw off his coat, and, with the aid of
the society furnishing the lumber, in a few weeks seated the basement
of the church. The first Negro ministers' union in Washington was
organized by Bishop Payne, the other two members being John F. Cook of
the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church and Levi Collins of Wesley
Zion.
It was during the Civil War, however, that the influence of Israel was
at its maximum. Then it was that the intellectual genius, the fiery
pulpit orator, the daring and unique Henry McNeal Turner, was not only
a conspicuous preacher but preeminent as a national character. These
were stirring times. All eyes were on Washington. Israel Church played
a leading part in the drama. Here the members of Congress, prominent
among whom at the time were Benjamin F. Wade, Thaddeus Stevens and
Henry Wilson, addressed the Negro citizens on the dominant issues of
the day, buoying them up in the midst of their darkness and gloom. At
this time the Israel Lyceum was an institution not unlike the Bethel
Literary Association of thirty years later, that drew the most
intellectual men to listen to lectures, participate in discussions,
and read dissertations on timely topics.[6]
In reckoning the influence[7] of this church the individuals whose
place was in the pew must not be forgotten. The minister passes from
church to church; the layman remains. In hurried review there comes to
mind Alethea Tanner, who rescued the church when it was about to be
sold at auction. There were George Bell and Enoch Ambush, who operated
in this church basement a large school which was maintained for
thirty-two years. Honorable mention belongs here also to Rev. William
Nichols whom, because of his high ideals, Bishop Payne, in his
_History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church from 1816 to 1856_,
classed as "a man of more than ordinary intelligence firmly opposed to
the extravagent zeal and rude manners which characterized so many of
the leading men of his denomination." He was the "veritable hero who
had aided the martyred Torrey in covering the escape of many slaves
from the District of Columbia to Canada and who when by accident he
learned that suspicion rested on him the fear of arrest was so great
on his mind as to induce the paralysis which led to his (Nicoll's)
sudden death."[8]
Some years later a sermon preached at Israel by Bishop John M. Brown,
to whom the writer was a listener, deeply stirred the congregation. At
the time I did not understand what caused the tumult until I learned
from Rev. James Reid, a local preacher, that the church was
negotiating for another lot on which to erect a new building, and the
contention was whether the title to the new site should be held in
trust for the congregation or for the denomination. The people
contended that the property should be held in trust for them; the
bishop, on the other hand, maintained that it should be in the name of
the trustees of the denomination. The people were insistent and won
their contention. A step further was the repudiation of the
appointment made for them by the bishop, and the severance of their
relations with the A. M. E. church made them independent. After a
short interval Israel joined the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church,
which had been set apart in 1870 by the M. E. Church, South.[9]
During these years the Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church was also in
the making. Certain records show January 15, 1836, as the date of the
organization of the Asbury Aid Society. These workers were originally
a part of the Old Foundry Church. When this congregation augmented so
that the gallery occupied by the Negro membership became too congested
for their accommodation, it became necessary to find more suitable
quarters. The old Smothers School House on H Street near Fourteenth
was rented for their use, but it, too, became inadequate, making the
purchase of ground on which to build an immediate necessity. Thomas
Johnson, Lewis Delaney, and Benjamin M. McCoy were constituted the
building committee that secured from William Billings the lot on which
the church was ultimately built. The Foundry Quarterly Conference,
under whose authority they were functioning, elected trustees and a
building committee to secure funds and pay for the building, but no
regular church organization was immediately effected. These
communicants remained under the sole management and control of the
Foundry Church until the organization of the Washington Conference in
the Civil War. Originally there were two Negro preachers, one a
deacon, the other a licentiate, and two exhorters in these early days.
There were three stewards, two black and one white. These constituted
the officiary and were members of the Foundry Quarterly Conference.
After the Annual Conference of 1841, when there were, according to the
stewards' records, 423 Negro members, an appeal was made to the
Quarterly Conference of the Foundry for a preacher to take more direct
supervision of the church. By order of the bishop, Rev. James M.
Hanson, a supernumerary of the Foundry Church was appointed to take
the charge of Asbury as its regular minister. Though a separate
charge, Asbury was not a separate station, and it continued in
subordination to the Foundry Church. After Hanson's appointment,
regular weekly meetings were established, but the white leaders did
not seem to succeed, for four of them had by this time resigned. In
1845 there was but one white leader remaining, and he did not meet
regularly with the Negro leaders.[10] Again in 1851, therefore, there
was an appeal to the presiding bishop and elders of the Baltimore
Annual Conference (white) praying for a separate establishment,[11]
and the request was finally granted in the Civil War.
Union Bethel (Metropolitan) A. M. E. Church was organized July 6,
1838, as a branch of Israel A. M. E., with Clayton Durham as pastor,
assisted by John Cornish. They met in a little house which stood in
the rear of one Mr. Bolden's residence on L Street near Fifteenth
Street. William H. Moore took charge in 1840, after which regular
appointments annually followed. In 1841 there served one Mr. Moore,
who was reappointed, and in 1842 Edward Waters began an incumbency of
two years. In 1844 Adam S. Driver became pastor and remained two
years. He was succeeded in 1847 by Thomas W. Henry. In 1848 Alexander
Washington Wayman, whose name frequently figures in the history of the
church and denomination, appeared on the scene, followed in 1850 by W.
H. Moore. In 1851 Wayman returned to Union Bethel and remained two
years. In 1853 John R. V. Morgan, destined to occupy a unique figure
because of his oratorical ability, was pastor. Savage L. Hammond, who
was appointed in 1854, served also the next year.[12]
The first work towards the erection of the present Metropolitan
African Methodist Episcopal Church, first known as Union Bethel, was
begun by John W. Stevenson, who was transferred from the New Jersey
Conference and appointed by Bishop D. A. Payne for the specific
purpose of erecting the new building. He entered upon his work with
great zeal and alacrity, but pursued methods which, though adapted to
or suitable in the localities in which he had hitherto labored with
such phenomenal success, occasioned much friction and disgust in
Washington. He catered to elements that would relegate the more
cultured and progressive classes to the background, yet he secured
among the conservatives loyal support. At the end of his first year,
however, the spirit of rebellion was rife. A delegation of the
discontented element called on the presiding bishop to state their
grievance and effect the removal of the irrepressible minister, but
Bishop Payne was inexorable. He did not even give an actual hearing to
the petitioners, although they were personally known to him to be some
of the most faithful adherents of African Methodism. The next step was
open rebellion. Meetings were held by the dissatisfied group and in
the month of June more than a hundred and fifty persons, after the
question of forming a new religious organization had been carefully
canvassed, agreed to sever their connection with their spiritual
mother and raise their "Ebenezer" elsewhere. Notwithstanding this
opposition within and without, however, the old edifice was pulled
down and work on the new building was immediately begun.
The corner stone was laid in September, 1881, with appropriate
ceremonies under the auspices of the Masons. During the work on the
building, which was continued up to the fall of 1885, services were
held in the Hall on M Street diagonally opposite the square to the
west. By the end of Stevenson's second year, he had, by his
characteristic methods, alienated so many of those on whom he had
relied mainly for support that Bishop Payne, now disillusioned, was as
bitter against Stevenson as he was blindly his champion the year
before.[13] Stevenson was removed, but there were those who still
believed in his leadership. He refused to accept the appointment given
him and organized the Central Methodist Church with dissentients
formerly members of Union Bethel. James A. Handy was appointed
Stevenson's successor at this juncture, yet there was considerable
opposition even among those regarded as his firm personal and
political friends.[14] The building was finally completed. By a vote
of the African Methodist Episcopal Conference in 1872 the name was
changed from Union Bethel to Metropolitan.
The same forces tending toward separation were at this time at work
also among the Negro Baptist members in the white churches. This was
the case of the First Baptist Church (white) organized in 1802. Its
Negro members worshipped at first on the basis of equality with the
whites, but this came to an end when the Negro members were assigned
to the gallery, just as other churches of this time were gradually
segregating them. When the new white Baptist Church, which was
afterward sold and converted into a theater later known as Ford's
Theater, was built on Tenth Street, the Negro communicants were given
the gallery, but this was not satisfactory to the majority, who chafed
under the new arrangement. O. B. Brown, the pastor, however, tried
under the circumstances to treat the Negro members with as much
charity as his prejudiced members would permit, as he was a
kind-hearted man and did not believe in distinction on account of
color. When the Tenth Street Church was occupied in 1833, therefore,
these discontented members bought the old church on the corner of 19th
and I Streets, Northwest, which is still held by that congregation and
known throughout the country as the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church.
This was the first church of the denomination among the Negroes of the
District of Columbia. It was organized August 29, 1839, by Sampson
White, a Negro, assisted by John Healy and S. P. Hill, white pastors
of Baltimore, and Moses Clayton, a Negro minister, who was the founder
and pastor of the first Negro Baptist church of Baltimore. The
original members were William Bush, Eliza Bush, Lavinia Perry and
Emily Coke. The accession of Sampson White and wife increased the
membership to six. None of these had been members of any church in the
District of Columbia. They held letters from churches elsewhere, and
so were free to form a church of their own in this city. But the white
Baptist church, which had worshipped at 19th and I Streets, Northwest,
from the year of their organization, from 1802 to 1833, had many Negro
members who worshipped at 19th and I Streets for six years before
Sampson White organized his small congregation.
These Negro members of the white church, being separated in worship
from their white brethren, and having become sole owners of the house
of worship which formerly they and the whites owned as members of the
white church, wished to be organized as a separate body. This was
refused. Sampson White, therefore, organized the First Negro Baptist
Church of Washington, with persons not of the Washington white church,
and thereby secured the recognition of his church by the leading white
and Negro Baptists of Baltimore. In less than sixty days he had it in
the oldest and best known white Baptist connection in America, the
Philadelphia Baptist Association. This accomplished, Sampson White's
little group received into their body all of the Negro members of the
white church, except about twenty-three. These additional members made
this a congregation ten times the size of the original body. This
larger group, too, was in possession of the property at 19th and I
Streets, at the time that the founders received them as members, and
having been in possession of the property from the time it was sold to
the Negro members of the First Baptist Church, white, these Negro
Baptists, thereafter worshipping as the First Negro Baptist Church,
insisted that the property was theirs, while the few colored members
of the white church, who did not leave the parent body, claimed the
property as belonging to them. This led to a law suit which lasted for
years, but finally all the Negro members of the First Baptist Church,
white, cast in their lot with the members at 19th and I Streets, and
the trustees of the white church kindly released all claim in behalf
of Negro members of that body, and rendered the deed clear.[15]
The first pastorate of Sampson White was short. He was followed by
William Williams. Under his labors the membership increased almost to
two hundred. But the latter part of his incumbency was not peaceful
and William Bush, and others of the church withdrew. After casting
their lot with the white Second Baptist Church near the Navy Yard,
these seceders, along with others, were constituted the Second Negro
Baptist Church of this city, with H. Butler, a former member of the
church at 19th and I Streets, as pastor.
Following William Williams came Martin Jenkins as a supply. In 1849
Gustavus Brown became pastor, remaining for a short while. He was
succeeded by Sampson White, who, serving the congregation a second
time, remained with the church until 1853. Chauncey A. Leonard was the
next pastor, and after him Samuel M. Madden. At the close of the Civil
War, D. W. Anderson became pastor and for seven years labored for the
good of his church. During his ministry in Washington the church added
to its membership a thousand or more, chiefly as the result of the
additions to this city from the Negro population of the ex-slaves of
the South. But D. W. Anderson, as a man of great heart, labored for
all Washington. Under his leadership the Metropolitan and Vermont
Avenue Baptist churches were organized. The Nineteenth Street Baptist
Church building which had been altered and improved from time to time,
before his pastorate, was demolished and a new edifice erected in
1871. In 1872, D. W. Anderson passed to his reward and the church
erected a marble shaft in the Harmony Cemetery to mark the place
where his remains lie.
Anthony Binga, Sr., of Canada, followed D. W. Anderson, but his
pastorate was short. His successor was Jesse Boulden, of Mississippi,
who occupied the pulpit for about four years. During his pastorate
thirty members withdrew, and formed the Berean Baptist Church.
Sometime before this, the Salem Baptist Church had been constituted
with members from the churches of which Anderson, Binga and Boulden
had been pastors.[16]
The pastorate of Dr. Walter H. Brooks is the outstanding one in the
history of the church, extending from November 12, 1882, until the
present writing, the third decade of the twentieth century. During his
ministrations more than 3,500 have joined the church, 1,500 of whom
were personally baptized by him. The financial condition of the church
places it among the best managed churches in the country, although it
has at times assumed heavy obligations in making improvements and in
rebuilding. During the pastorate of Dr. Brooks a number of ministers
and preachers have gone forth from the Nineteenth Street Baptist
Church. Dr. J. L. Dart, the founder of an important education and
missionary work in South Carolina, was ordained at this church. Dr.
James R. L. Diggs, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, and head of
important educational work in Baltimore, is of this congregation,
having been baptized and ordained by Dr. Brooks. E. E. Rick, of
Newark, N. J., was ordained from the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church.
James L. Pinn is a product of this body, and Dr. Brooks was
influential in securing for him his first charge. John H. Burke,
pastor of Israel Baptist Church, came up under Dr. Brooks, as did also
Joseph Lee, of Arlington, Virginia, and James L. Jasper, of Brentwood,
Maryland. But none of these products of the Nineteenth Street Baptist
Church have done a better work than Miss Jennie Deane, the founder of
the Manassas Industrial School, in Virginia, and Miss Nannie H.
Burroughs, the founder and promoter of the National Training School
for Women and Girls, Lincoln Heights, Washington, D. C. Nor should
Mrs. Laura Queen be forgotten, for by her labors the doors of Stoddard
Baptist Home were first opened.[17]
The Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church, the next to be established,
was formally organized November 21, 1841, in a little frame school
house located on H Street near 14th Northwest. The moving spirit in
this undertaking was John F. Cook.[18] He had been received as a
licentiate by the Presbytery of the District of Columbia on the
twenty-first of October of that same year. Eighteen persons took part
in this organization. Of these John F. Cook and Alfred A. Cook had
been official members of the Union Bethel, now the Metropolitan
African Methodist Episcopal Church. The pioneer members came from the
First, the Second, and the Fourth Presbyterian Churches of the city
and one from the Shiloh Church of New York, of which the Rev. Theodore
S. Wright was pastor. The reasons why they desired the establishment
of an independent church were clearly set forth in a series of
resolutions which were not unlike those which occasioned the
organization of other Negro churches. The new society was received
into the Presbytery May 3, 1842, when in session at Alexandria,
Virginia, then a part of the District of Columbia. John F. Cook was
installed as the first pastor July 14, 1855. Under his pastorate the
church prospered, increasing its membership to 125.
The successor of Mr. Cook was William T. Catto of Philadelphia, the
former pastor of the First African Presbyterian Church of the country.
Others to occupy the pulpit as supplies and pastors were Benjamin T.
Tanner, subsequently a bishop of the A. M. E. Church, William B.
Evans, Henry Highland Garnet, J. H. Muse, J. Sella Martin, John B.
Reeves, during his connection with Howard University, Dr. Septimus
Tustin, George Van Deurs, a Swede, and John Brown, a Scotchman. The
last mentioned incumbent was succeeded by the Rev. Francis J. Grimké,
who has served longer than all other pastors combined, and with marked
success. During the first years of the ministry of Mr. Grimké, which
began in the spring of 1878, there was great spiritual awakening as
the result of his forceful preaching.
The church has had a high record for its Christian ideals and its
public spirit. It has always stood for the best things, morally and
spiritually, in the life of the community. It has always been ready to
aid in every worthy cause. During the period immediately preceding the
Civil War, and in the days of the reconstruction, it divided honors
with the Israel Church as a place of popular assembly and referendum.
In 1918 it sold its old edifice on 15th Street between I and K
Streets, where it had worshipped for seventy-five years, and is now
located in a beautiful and commodious structure on the corner of R and
Fifteenth Streets.
The next significant effort was made by the Baptists. Persons
dismissed from the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church for the purpose of
organizing another body began in the year 1848 the existence of the
Second Baptist Church, under the leadership of H. H. Butler, a
licentiate. The next year Jeremiah Asher, a native of Connecticut,
became the first pastor and remained for two years. Mr. Asher was a
typical New Englander of superior education and high ideals. In 1850
Gustavus Brown assumed charge of the new body when it worshipped on B
Street, Southwest, between Sixth and Seventh, in a broom factory, and
subsequently at 9th and D Streets, Northwest, over Ryan's Grocery
Store. In 1853 H. H. Butler was recalled and formally ordained as
pastor. He remained with the church until his death in 1856, when
Sandy Alexander was asked to accept this charge. A permanent home was
then bought on the present site where the congregation has worshipped
ever since. Mr. Alexander continued for five years until his health
compelled him to retire. In 1861, Caleb Woodyard became pastor and
remained for two years. During this period conditions were such that
progress was not steady and this led to the recall of Mr. Alexander,
under whose direction a strong organization was effected. Following
him, came Chauncey A. Leonard and next John Gaines. Then followed
Madison Gaskins, whose service was characterized by alternating
conditions, a lawsuit, a fire and new organizations branching
therefrom as Mount Carmel, Mt. Olive in the Northeast, and Rehoboth in
the Southwest.[20]
The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Churches of Washington, D. C.,
grew out of the efforts of their denomination, founded by James
Varick, Peter Williams, William Miller, Abraham Thompson, Christopher
Rush and others, in New York City, in 1796. These fathers early
extended their work through New England, western New York, central and
western Pennsylvania. In 1833, their first church was founded in South
Washington, then known as the Island. It was established as the
Metropolitan Wesley African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, on D
Street, Southwest, Washington, D. C. The first pastor was Abraham
Cole, who took charge in 1833. The persons organizing this church were
originally members of the Ebenezer M. E. Church, located on D Street,
Southeast. They drew out of this organization because their pastor, a
white man, held slaves. The Wesley Metropolitan African Methodist
Episcopal Zion Church, its officers contend, was the first independent
church in the District of Columbia organized by colored people. The
first public school for the training of Negro youth was held in this
church. Hanson Brooks was the secretary of the first organization.[21]
The establishment of the Union Wesley, the second church of the
Zionites, in Washington, the progressive body, of which Dr. E. D. W.
Jones was pastor, was very interesting. This church was organized in
1848 by Bishop J. J. Clinton, who afterwards became a bright star in
the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. The organization took
place in the residence of Gasoway Waters in Georgetown.[22] He had
been sent to Georgetown as a missionary and started his labors in this
organization of a few persons determined to become independent of the
white Methodists.
They began the construction of a church with the help of such men and
women as Charles Lemon, Charly Wilson, Eliza Wilson, William Crusoe,
George Brown, Mary Brown, William Sewall, Margaret Waters, and Eliza
Johnson. After having been organized for a little while, they bought a
lot on the corner of what is now known as 28th and O Streets,
Georgetown.[23] Things seemed favorable in the beginning, but the
enemies of the church were busy those days putting temptation in the
path of the Negro and betraying him unto his enemies. Bondmen,
according to the slave code, were not allowed to meet or hold any kind
of meeting unless a white man was present. Nor were they allowed to be
out after ten o'clock at night without a pass, or to have two or more
congregate on the street at one time. If they did any of these things,
they thereby violated the sacred laws of bondage and suffered
imprisonment and persecution. Thus handicapped in their worship, they,
like Paul and Silas, prayed for a deliverer, and he came in the person
of a young lawyer from Philadelphia, who had taken up the cause. By
his earnest endeavors in their behalf, they were released without
being sentenced to jail or whipped. But, nevertheless, they were
driven out of Georgetown, across Rock Creek, and into Washington,
where they worshipped for a while in the house of William Beckett on
the corner of 23d and L Streets.
A short time afterwards they bought the lot where this church now
stands and built thereon a frame chapel which was contemptuously
called the Horseshoe Church. After they had been there but a short
time, there was a funeral at the chapel one day. Across from the
chapel the Hibernian fire company was stationed. While the funeral
services were being held in the chapel, two of these firemen came
across the street and while one of them got inside of the hearse the
other one got up on the driver's seat and drove all around the
streets, while the people were out looking for the hearse. When they
came back, the one who was inside got out and said that he was Lazarus
risen from the dead. This act so inflamed some of the white gentlemen
that they had the firemen arrested and prosecuted. These two impious
gentlemen became so indignant because of their arrest that they set
fire to the chapel and burned it to the ground. These communicants,
being homeless again, went back to the house of William Beckett on L
Street and commenced to rebuild. This time they succeeded in erecting
a brick building, a portion of which stands today.
The John Wesley African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was organized
in 1849 at the home of John Brent on Eighteenth and L Streets. Among
the founders were John Brent, W. H. Johnson, John Brent, Jr., William
V. Ingram, Arnold Bowie, Charles Wilson, Joseph Conner, Edward Curtis,
and Gilbert Joy. These communicants then purchased property on
Connecticut Avenue and built thereon a simple frame building into
which they moved in 1851.[24] This church finally bought the old
Berean Baptist Church property on Eighteenth Street, under the
pastorate of Dr. B. J. Bolding, in 1902.
The ministers who pastored the congregation while it worshipped in
Connecticut Avenue were Abraham Cole, J. B. Trusty, N. F. Turpin, J.
H. Hamer, H. F. Butler, Nathaniel Stubbs, Sampson Talbert, S. T.
Jones, John V. Givens, S. T. Henry, G. W. Bosley, S. S. Wales, J. W.
Smith, J. P. Thompson, Jesse Cowles, W. A. Cypress, J. A. Williams, J.
B. Small, B. J. Bolding, R. H. G. Dyson, D. H. Anderson, R. A. Fisher,
J. J. Clinton, and J. H. McMullen. Those who served the body in
Eighteenth Street were Rev. L. W. Kyles, W. A. Blackwell, P. H.
Williams, C. C. Alleyne, and Dr. William C. Brown. John Wesley Church
has had at different times six pastors, who later were elected to the
bishopric. These were Bishops Sampson Talbert, J. J. Clinton, J. P.
Thompson, S. T. Jones, J. B. Small and John Wesley Smith, all of whom
are deceased. Among the officers of the church may be mentioned
Gilbert L. Joy, who was made secretary of the Trustee Board in 1864,
and served thirty-two years in that capacity. He had the enviable
record of being a trustee of this church for forty-three years, a
longer period than that of any other person connected with it, and he
is still an active member.
The awakening of John Wesley A. M. E. Zion Church, characterized by
the selling of its property on Eighteenth Street to purchase at the
same time the edifice on Fourteenth and Corcoran Streets for $61,000,
is significant. It is the most important event in the history of Zion
Church in Washington. The Zion Church long needed a larger
representative edifice in this city. This advanced step was taken, and
under the leadership of Dr. W. C. Brown and Dr. W. O. Carrington the
progress of the congregation has been epochal.
The Galbraith African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church was founded in
1859. That year five members of Zion Wesley, under the leadership of
Samuel Payne, withdrew and organized a church in a small house on L
Street between Third and Fourth Streets. They subsequently built a
house of worship near New York Avenue. Robert H. G. Dyson who had been
active as a class leader and chorister in Zion Wesley, became the
first pastor. It developed from its little frame church on L Street,
Northwest, into a larger congregation in the modern structure on its
present location, under N. J. Green, the pastor in charge. This church
has figured conspicuously in the religious, moral and civic uplift of
the city. It has been served by an array of prominent ministers, chief
among whom are J. Harvey Anderson, J. S. Coles, Wm. Chambers, J. B.
Colbert, H. P. Kyler, William Dixon, S. L. Corrothers, George C.
Clement, and William D. Battle. During Mr. Battle's administration the
church was relieved of its long-standing debt and the well begun work
was steadily developed.[25]
The next efforts in the District of Columbia were of the Baptists.
Albert Bouldin, who began public prayer services near Fourth and L
Streets in 1857, was a prominent influence in the organization of the
Third Baptist Church.[26] On June 20, 1858 there was held a council of
ministers at which were present G. W. Sampson, Chauncey A. Leonard, A.
Rothwell, Lindsey Muse, Evans Stott, Henry H. Butler, Sandy Alexander,
and L. Patten. There were also the following laymen: Joseph Pryor,
Joseph Alexander, N. Nookes, Henry Scott, John Minor, Charles
Alexander, and Austin Robinson. The trustees were William B.
Jefferson, Joseph Alexander, Henry Scott, Charles Alexander, Vernon
Duff, and Henry Nookes, who assisted in effecting the organization and
served it as the first deacons.
In 1863 there was secured on Fourth and L Streets a lot on which the
people began to erect their meeting house. On account of disputes,
four years afterward it became necessary to look elsewhere, and
William B. Jefferson became the controlling spirit. Then a lot was
purchased on Franklin Street between Fourth and Fifth at a cost of
$1,198.50. In September, 1871, the church was dedicated. Rev. D. W.
Anderson, at that time pastor of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church,
delivered the sermon. After a lapse of thirteen years, August 2, 1884,
another lot situated on the corner of Fifth and Que Streets was
purchased.[27] The next forward movement was toward the erection of a
new building which was completed July 1893 at a cost of $26,000 and
dedicated the fifth Sunday of July 1893.[28]
There soon followed another significant undertaking. After preaching
regularly to four persons for four years, Sandy Alexander organized on
October 5, 1862, the First Baptist Church of West Washington. Two of
the four pioneer members were from churches in Fredericksburg,
Virginia. Dr. G. W. Sampson, president of Columbian College,
subsequently Columbian University, now the George Washington
University, was of great service to Mr. Alexander in this work of the
organization of this church. The church was first located on the
corner of Greene and Beale Street, Georgetown, where it remained one
year, after which a lot was purchased at the corner of Dumbarton and
27th Streets and a large frame building was first constructed at a
cost of $15,000.[29] From this church there have been regularly
organized the Macedonia, the First Baptist Church of Rosslyn,
Virginia, and the Memorial Baptist Church in Maryland.
The Baptists were at the same time receiving recruits from another
source. In June, 1862, while a destructive war was being waged by the
Southern States against the Union, warning was given that a terrible
siege was to be started against the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia.
This news caused between three and four hundred members of the Shiloh
Baptist Church of that town to leave for Washington as a place of
refuge. After arriving there many tearful eyes were turned toward the
dear old church of their childhood and riper years, where "many a
pleasant hour had been enjoyed, and it was only natural for these
fellow church members to plan for a place where they might once more
gather in prayer and praise God for their deliverance from the
ravages of war."[30] Home gatherings were frequent among these
refugees and in this way the organization of the present church was
effected.
Shiloh Baptist Church, like many other churches, had its beginning in
a Sunday School.[31] The constant meeting of these seekers after the
truth served to keep a number of them in close touch with each other
and intensified the desire for a church of their own. They then began
to meet in each other's houses for prayer and for conference upon the
subject and soon resolved to have a Shiloh Baptist Church in
Washington, since they could not return to Shiloh Church in
Fredericksburg. It was at one of these prayer meetings in the bedroom
of Henry D. Peyton in an old brick house on K Street, between 26th and
27th Streets, in Georgetown (now West Washington) that Shiloh Baptist
Church of Washington had its beginnings in September, 1863.[32]
Having formed the church, the founders sent a communication to the
various Baptist churches of Washington, both white and black, asking
that a council be called to consider the propriety of recognizing them
as a regularly constituted Baptist church. The Negro Baptist churches
gave these petitioners no encouragement and sent no delegates to the
council, but the white Baptist churches sent a number of their
members, deacons, and pastors, as delegates, who met in the First
white Baptist church, located at that time on 13th Street between G
and H Streets, Northwest, at eight o'clock Wednesday evening,
September 23, 1863, and formed a recognition council. Dr. G. W.
Sampson, pastor of the First Baptist Church and President of Columbian
College, was chosen Moderator, and John S. Poler, clerk. After
approving the credentials of the delegates the Moderator stated the
purpose of the meeting. He further stated that the council had also
been asked to examine William J. Walker as to his fitness and
qualification for the gospel ministry, and if found worthy to ordain
him, as the church had called him as its pastor and recommended his
ordination.[33] It was so ordered and done by the council.
The church continued to meet in the homes of the members, but it grew
so rapidly that it soon became necessary to secure larger quarters.
The little frame building on the north side of L Street, between 16th
and 17th Northwest, was then bought, and the church moved into it and
remained there until 1868. The church prospered greatly and soon
outgrew its first meeting house. Steps were then taken to purchase a
site and erect a building sufficiently large to accommodate the
growing membership. The present lot was secured, and in 1868 a
commodious frame structure was erected thereon and used until 1883,
when the church tore down the frame building and erected upon the same
spot the present brick edifice.
William J. Walker, the first pastor, played a large part in building
up the Baptist denomination in the District of Columbia and adjoining
States. He organized four churches in Washington, namely, Zion
Baptist, Enon Baptist, Mt. Zion Baptist and Mt. Jezreel Baptist
churches, and two churches in Virginia, all of which are strong and
prosperous organizations. He also founded the Baptist Sunday School
Union and the Woman's Baptist Home Mission Society.
For a year or more after the death of William J. Walker the church
remained without a pastor. During the greater part of this time
William H. Scott served as supply, and it was while he was serving the
church that the Walker Memorial Baptist Church was formed out of the
members who drew out of Shiloh. Dr. J. Anderson Taylor became pastor
in 1890 and remained with the church until near the close of 1906.
During his ministry the church greatly increased in membership, and
enlarged its building at a cost of $10,000. When Dr. Taylor gave up
the pastorate of the church about 200 members withdrew from Shiloh and
formed the Trinity Baptist Church and called him to take charge
thereof. Shiloh Baptist Church, then, has been divided twice within
twenty-three years. In spite of these handicaps, however, the church
has prospered financially, numerically and spiritually. Dr. J. Milton
Waldron took formal charge of Shiloh Baptist Church on the 6th of June
1907 and has labored with success in edifying his congregation and
extending the influence of the church.[34]
While the organization of Shiloh Church was being effected in the
northern section of Washington, there was in the southwest also
another group from Fredericksburg. This effort resulted in the
establishment of the Zion Baptist Church. They first organized a
Sunday and day school in Jackson's School House on Delaware Avenue and
L Street, Southwest. Their next movement was the organization of a
church, September 12, 1864, with nine members. They bought what was
then known as Simpson's Feed Store on the present site of the church,
and remodeled this building in 1867; William J. Walker was its
founder and first pastor. In January, 1869, William Gibbons of
Charlottesville, Virginia, became the pastor and under his temporal
and spiritual oversight the church flourished. The first church
edifice was dedicated in 1871 and for twenty-one years was used by the
congregation. In 1891 the present structure was built at an
expenditure of $35,000. The membership at the forty-eighth anniversary
was 2,310, the largest at the time in the District of Columbia. Up to
the close of the nineteenth century they raised annually on an average
of $8,000 for current expenses. Their present pastor, William J.
Howard, has a unique record as being one of the best known ministers
and men in the city, regardless of denomination, and with a character
beyond reproach.[35]
The Metropolitan, formerly known as the Fourth Baptist Church, was
organized May 1863 by a few holding letters from the Nineteenth Street
Baptist Church during the pastorate of Duke W. Anderson, and by a few
members from other churches. Henry Bailey was the first pastor of the
new group. In 1865 there took place a division of this body which
resulted in the establishment of the Fifth, now the Vermont Avenue
Baptist Church. The organization was effected in a mission building
which stood in the intersection of what is now E Street and Vermont
Avenue. Two contending parties, both claiming to be the Fourth Baptist
Church, were then engaged in presenting their rival claims. Four
church councils were held before it was established which one had the
right to bear the title Fourth. Robert Johnson took charge in 1870,
seven years after the original movement. Under him the establishment
prospered.
Four buildings have been used as church edifices in the history of
this congregation, the mission building referred to above, the
barracks, a relic of the Civil War, and a frame structure on the site
of the present edifice, which at that time of its dedication in 1884
was valued at $60,000; but today the valuation, conservatively
speaking, may be placed at $175,000. From 1865 to 1890 the membership
was about 2,000, 1,100 of whom were baptized by Robert Johnson. The
first Washington Baptist Convention composed of churches principally
of the District of Columbia requested in September, 1890, that the
church be called the Metropolitan. The congregation formally agreed to
bear the title and since then Metropolitan has been its legal as well
as its popular name.
After securing the services of Dr. M. W. D. Norman, who came from
Portsmouth, Virginia, in 1905, the progress of the church has been
such as to merit fully the title Metropolitan. On his assumption of
the pastorate, a large floating and bonded indebtedness rested on the
church. This has been discharged and modern improvements of
electricity and steam heating at the cost of $15,000 have been
provided. Yet there is not a dollar of indebtedness and the membership
has increased to 5,748.
The following ministers have been ordained by the Metropolitan Baptist
Church: Charles H. Parker, W. Bishop Johnson, John A. Pryer, Edward
B. Gordon, Anderson Hogan, Luke D. Best, William Richardson, William
Johnson, E. R. Jackson, John Braxton, John Mercer, Noah Grimes, Levi
Washington, and W. L. Hill.[36]
The Baptist church on Vermont Avenue between Q and R Streets was
originally established as the Fifth Baptist Church, June 5, 1866, by
the pious J. H. Brooks, with seven members. He built a frame structure
which was afterward replaced by a more comfortable brick building.
Under him the congregation grew and in 1884, when he died the church
had a membership of 1,800. He had served his people well, impressed
the community with his worth, and passed to his reward loved not only
by his own members but by the Christian people throughout the city.
He was succeeded by Dr. George W. Lee, who came to this church from
North Carolina where he had served successfully as a pastor. Dr. Lee
was installed in 1885 and served a quarter of a century, passing away
on February 6, 1910. There were several important achievements during
his pastorate. In 1890, at a cost of about $25,000, he remodeled the
building left by J. H. Brooks and changed the name to Vermont Avenue
Baptist Church. Being a great preacher and pastor noted for his
originality and his ability to master the situation, he soon attracted
a large following and increased the membership of his church almost to
4,000. He easily became a man of national reputation and in his
travels abroad so impressed the people wherever he went that he
developed into an international character.
Dr. Lee was noted especially for three significant elements in his
character. Near to his heart was the promotion of African missions in
keeping with his deep sense of charity. He was always a friend of the
poor and, being such, emphasized more than any other duty of the
church that of supporting missionary work in Africa. As a result the
Vermont Avenue Baptist Church did more for this purpose than many
other churches of the District of Columbia combined. He was always
disposed, moreover, to help the under man in the struggle with his
uncharitable accusers and traducers. When a minister was under fire,
he usually stood by the unfortunate, if there was any possible chance
to save him for the good of the service. He made himself, too, a
patron of young men aspiring to the ministry, raising money for their
support by impressing upon the people the importance of educating
them. In this connection he trained and helped to support Dr. James E.
Willis, who was baptized, licensed and ordained to preach under Dr.
Lee. Through contact the one became attached to the other so that the
younger imbibed the spirit of the other.
Dr. Willis became his successor in 1911. At first many of the members
questioned his ability to fill such a position so that there developed
much trouble in the congregation and much anxiety among the people at
large. There followed a schism which resulted in litigation in the
courts and the secession of a group of members who established the
Florida Avenue Baptist Church, now in the charge of Dr. Taylor. Dr.
Willis, however, was established as pastor with the support of a large
majority of the members of the church. He filled the position with
such distinction and attracted to him such a following of willing
workers that the church prospered under him as it did under his
predecessor. In recognition of his valuable services the congregation
gave him a trip to the Holy Land at a cost of $3,000. It then
purchased adjoining property upon which it erected a monument to Dr.
George W. Lee.
According to a recent report rendered by the clerk and treasurer, the
congregation has during the pastorate of Dr. Willis raised more than
$68,000 for general expenses and $1,850 for their Old Folk's Home.
This does not by any means account for the amount raised for
charitable purposes, which include home and foreign missions. The
support given needy members and institutions of learning, traveling
ministers, and the like, has amounted approximately to $35,000 or
$40,000. The church, moreover, has been very generous in the support
of home missions, a duty decidedly emphasized by Dr. Willis in
contradistinction to the inclination of Dr. Lee, who emphasized
foreign missions.[36a]
Baptists in another part of the city were planning an additional
organization. The First Baptist Church of South Washington was
organized on Sixth Street between G and H Streets, Southwest, in 1866.
Alfred Bolden was the first pastor. Two buildings have been erected on
the present site. One Mr. Lee afterward served as the pastor until the
coming of Henry C. Robinson, who exhibited energy that promised a
bright future. Early in the history of the church, as an outcome of an
internal agitation, however, 54 excluded members organized the
Virginia Avenue Baptist Church and were afterward joined by others,
thus weakening the parent organization; but in 1891 the property was
valued at $25,000 and the church had a membership of 500.[37]
Another Baptist church soon resulted from a secession. In 1873 William
Shanklin, Peter Gray, Abraham Blackmore, Edward Montague, and
Catherine Wilson left the Fifth Baptist Church, now the Vermont Avenue
Baptist Church, and formed, with their friends, Mt. Jezreel. Since
then it has grown to be the largest Negro Baptist church in Southeast
Washington, though it is also the youngest. The church, when first
formed, was located on Van Street. It grew rapidly, and soon was able
to buy desirable property on the southeast corner of Fifth and E
Streets and begin the erection of its present handsome church edifice.
In 1888 the building was finished and it was dedicated the first
Sunday in November of that year, when Dr. Robert Johnson, of the
Metropolitan Baptist Church, preached the dedicatory sermon. Its
membership numbers about 300 people, and the church is in a very
prosperous condition.[38]
The organization of another Baptist church soon followed. In
September, 1876, there was organized on Nichol's Avenue, Hillsdale,
the Bethlehem Baptist Church by Henry Scott, its first pastor. It was
an outgrowth from the Macedonia Baptist Church organized nine years
before by Sandy Alexander, of the First West Washington Church. The
first officers were William Singleton, Carle Matthews, James Flood,
Richard Harrison, Mack McKenzie, Cornelius W. Davis, David Simpson,
Armstead Taylor, and Leonard Peyton.[39] The second minister, William
H. Phillips, served with considerable success for six years when he
was called to the Shiloh Baptist Church in Philadelphia, where he
died.[40]
A new church was soon to evolve as a result of another stir among the
Baptists. The succession of the pastorates of Dr. Anthony Binga, Sr.,
and Jesse Bolden to that of Dr. D. W. Anderson did not satisfy an
important element of the 19th Street Baptist Church, which for fifteen
years had given that church moral and financial support. Steps to
organize a new church were therefore taken. In the preliminary stages
of the separation there was much opposition. Nevertheless, they
organized May 7, 1877, at the residence of William H. A. Wormley, 1126
16th Street, Northwest, and were recognized by a council of Baptist
churches which met at the residence of L. C. Bailey, 1022 Nineteenth
Street, June 5, 1877.[41] With twenty-two members this determined body
went pluckily to work. In the first place, they were fortunate in
securing for their pastor a man who for thirteen years voluntarily
served the flock without salary. For twenty-five years, 1877 to 1902,
they worshipped in their church on 18th Street, which was erected
within six months of organization for the sum of $19,000. The church
grew from 22 to 200. It is a fair estimate that $50,000 was received
from all sources during this period. In 1902 they sold this church to
the John Wesley A. M. E. Zion for $19,500 cash. After vacating their
building and meeting in Odd Fellows Hall they erected their present
building at 11th and V Streets, which they have paid for in full. The
successor to Mr. Wm. Waring was Dr. W. A. Creditt.[42] Then came Dr.
J. M. Waldron, who in 1892 was succeeded by Rev. Mr. D. F. Rivers, who
still abides as a potent factor in the life of the Washington people.
After the Civil War Negroes became attracted to denominations in which
they had never sought membership because of their close attachment to
the Methodists and Baptists. From just such a divergence from the old
order resulted the organization of the Lincoln Memorial Temple
Congregational Church, on the northeast corner of 11th and R Streets,
Northwest. This church was organized in the parlor of F. S. Presbrey,
publisher of _Public Opinion_, January 10, 1887, with Rev. S. P. Smith
as its first pastor. Lincoln Temple is the outgrowth of the Colfax
Industrial Mission founded by members of the First Congregational
Church, prominent among whom was John W. Alvord. It later became the
Lincoln Mission. In addition to the Sunday School feature should be
mentioned the industrial work, as classes in domestic science and
domestic art were conducted there. For a time this mission constituted
the first church home for Negro girls in the country. Among its
founders were R. S. Smith, William H. Jackson, Theodore Clark and
wife, Otwina Smith, Miss Booker, Hiram Ball, a Mrs. Jackson of Chicago
and a Mr. Shorter. The Lincoln Mission Sunday School, with an
attendance running at times to 700 and more, was a part of the work of
the charitable organizations of the North engaged in missions and
education in the South among the freedmen. As such it was one of the
institutions of the city in Sabbath School work, with music especially
popular. This school enjoyed the fostering care of the American
Missionary Association, which appointed a minister to conduct
religious services and a woman to work in the homes of the people. The
teachers of the Sunday School were of both races. The whites were
drawn from the First Congregational Church and Negroes were mainly
students from Howard University.
During the operation of these two instrumentalities, the thought that
the work of the school could be made more effectual and permanent by
the organization of a church first took tangible form in the years of
Mr. Smith's ministrations, and the church grew steadily and surely.
Rev. George W. Moore became pastor on June 1, 1883. His work was a
thorough success, due in no small measure to the personality of his
wife, Ella Sheppard Moore, who had been pianist of the Fisk Jubilee
Singers and with them had circled the globe. Dr. Moore resigned in
1893. Subsequent pastors have been Rev. Eugene Johnson, A. P. Miller
and Sterling N. Brown. Dr. Brown was followed by Rev. Emory B. Smith,
an enterprising young man who has brought the church to the very
foremost in all the activities of religious work.[43]
The Plymouth Congregational Church was the direct outcome of
dissatisfaction of many members of Union Bethel, now the Metropolitan
Church, at the arbitrary action of Bishop Daniel A. Payne in the
matter of the appointment of the Rev. John W. Stevenson as pastor of
Union Bethel Church and the refusal to remove him. For these reasons
63 members decided to withdraw from the African Methodist Episcopal
denomination and organized themselves in the Shiloh Hall on L Street,
near 16th, Northwest, as the First Congregational Church of Washington
in the District of Columbia. William T. Peele, who for several years
had been a local preacher and class leader at Union Bethel Church was
one of the number--in fact, the leader of the recalcitrant
communicants. Church services for the new congregation were held in
the meeting place of the Salem Baptist Church on N Street near 17th.
Here they could meet only in the afternoon on Sunday. Other quarters
were then secured on 18th Street near L and M Streets. On October 5,
1881, the name of the new organization was changed to that of the
Plymouth Congregational Church of Washington. Their leader, William T.
Peele, was then regularly ordained and installed as their pastor by
Dr. Holmes of Baltimore, assisted by Dr. J. E. Rankin, then pastor of
First Congregational Church, Dr. William Patton, President of Howard
University, W. W. Hicks, and S. P. Smith. The church attached itself
to the New Jersey Association of Congregational Churches at the
fourteenth annual meeting held in the First Congregational Church in
April, 1882. The church then purchased at a cost of $4,500 a site at
the southeast corner of 17th and P Streets, on which it built by 1887.
William T. Peele, to whom this body rallied as its first pastor
tendered his resignation July 26, 1888, and for several months the
church was without a pastor. Dr. Sterling N. Brown of Cleveland, Ohio,
entered upon the pastorate April 1, 1887, and rendered a most
successful service. Under his guidance they evolved steadily from
Methodism to Congregationalism.
Dr. Alexander C. Garner became the next pastor in 1896 and for
twenty-five years led the church both temporally and spiritually. The
church has been honored by his being chosen to represent the
Congregationalists at national gatherings. The entire church mortgage
debt was cancelled during Dr. Garner's incumbency, when all the
churches were making strenuous and successful efforts to the same end.
In fact, his successful career had much to do with his call to the
direction of the growing spiritual interests of the Congregationalists
in Harlem in New York.[44]
Some Negroes, too, had begun to look with more favor upon the
Protestant Episcopal church. As early as 1866 cottage meetings were
held by C. H. Hall, rector of the Epiphany, with the assistance of J.
Vaughn Lewis, rector of St. John's Church. This movement went to the
extent that steps were taken looking to the establishment of a church
and the purchase of a lot on which an edifice was to be built. At this
juncture Mrs. Parsons, a communicant of St. John's parish, donated a
lot for the purpose on 23d Street, and Secretary of War E. M. Stanton
contributed a frame building in 1867. From 1867 to 1873 several white
clergymen officiated, but the selection of a colored minister to take
charge of the work was indispensable. Efforts to this end soon
followed. Among the clergymen considered were William H. Josephus, a
talented West Indian, and William J. Alston, who had been rector of
St. Phillip's in New York and of St. Thomas in Philadelphia. John
Thomas Johnson, a progressive Negro citizen who in the reconstruction
times was Treasurer of the District Government, began on behalf of a
number of interested people a correspondence with Dr. Alexander
Crummell with a view to securing him as the spiritual leader of these
Episcopalians. This effort resulted in bringing Dr. Crummell to
Washington in June, 1873.
The people almost instantaneously rallied to Dr. Crummell's support
and the outcome was the determination to build a church. A sinking
fund association, composed of young people from different sections of
the city, and in which other denominations were represented, was a
most active factor. The enthusiasm was intense. The corner stone was
laid in 1876 at Fifteenth and Sampson Streets, near Church Street, and
work on the new building went rapidly on. Dr. Crummell meanwhile
traveled extensively throughout the North and East for funds in aid of
the new movement. Such was his success that the first services in the
new building were held there on Thanksgiving Day, November 27,
1879.[45]
With the opening of St. Luke's a new opportunity presented itself at
St. Mary's, where the congregation under the administration of Mr. O.
L. Mitchell developed into an institutional church. It was consecrated
December 11, 1894, by Bishop William Paret, then of Maryland, assisted
by Bishop Penick and Dr. W. V. Tunnell, of Howard University, who
preached the sermon. St. Mary's is one of the most beautiful of
churches.
The rise of Negro Catholic churches in the District of Columbia as
well as throughout the United States has been less extensive for the
reason that not very many Negroes have been attracted to this
denomination because of its ritualistic appeal, and those who have
become adherents to the Catholic faith have been treated with so much
more of the spirit of Christ than they have been by other sects, that
the tendency toward independent church establishments has not been so
pronounced. Early in the history of the District of Columbia Rev.
Leonard Neale, the Archbishop of Georgetown, his brother, the Rev.
Francis Neale of the Holy Trinity Church, and Father Van Lomell,
pastor of the same church in 1807, were all friends of the Negroes,
showing no distinction on account of color in the establishment of
parish schools and the uplift of the people. The same policy was
followed by Father De Theux, who in 1817 succeeded Father Macelroy,
who established a Sunday School and labored with a great deal of
devotion to bring them into the church. The Catholic Church was free
in all of its privileges to all persons regardless of color. This was
especially true of St. Patrick's Church under its founder, Father
Matthew, who permitted the poorest Negro to kneel at the altar side by
side with the highest personages in the land. The same was observed in
St. Aloysius Church and in St. Mary's Church at Alexandria. The
Catholics were the last to change their attitude toward the Negro
during the critical antislavery period of the thirties, forties, and
fifties, when the Protestant churches practically excluded the Negroes
from their Sunday Schools and congregations. This explains why the
Negro Catholics organized in the District of Columbia during the early
period only one Catholic church of their own, St. Martin's, although
the Negro Catholics constituted a considerable part of the Negro
population.
The actual separation of the Negroes in the Catholic Church did not
take place until the Civil War itself necessitated certain changes to
meet the special needs of the Negroes in their new status. The
establishment of St. Augustine's Church, however, somewhat antedated
this. Before the organization of this church there was established a
school meeting the special needs of the Negroes on L Street, and out
of that developed the organization of this church in 1863. The moving
spirit in this undertaking was Father Charles J. White, who was then
pastor of St. Matthew's church in which the Negroes had always felt
free to worship. Early in 1863 he purchased a lot on 15th Street
between L and M and built there a two-story structure with the
assistance of colored members from the various churches of the city
and especially from those of St. Matthew's. Among those participating
in the launching of this new church were the following: Miss Mary
Harrison, Mr. Isaac Landic and wife, Mrs. Jane Smallwood, Mrs. Henry
Warren and family, Mr. and Mrs. William Henry Smith, the Misses Mary
and Sara Ann Smith, Mr. William T. Benjamin, Mr. Bazil Mullen, Mr.
John West, Miss Agnes Gray, Messrs. William H. Wheeler, Henry Jackson,
Henry Neal and family, James F. Jackson and family, Mrs. Frances
Madison, and the Misses Eliza Ann Cook, Mary T. Smith, Eliza Hall, and
Jane Teagle.
In the course of time there were so many accessions to the church that
more space was needed. In 1865, therefore, a frame building was added
at the time that the church was under the patronage of Martin de
Porrers, a colored lay brother of the order of St. Dominic, who had
labored in South America. Dr. White was still the pastor, with Martin
de Porrers officiating at most of the services. In the course of time
it was necessary to seek other assistants, who were supplied by the
Society of Jesus at Georgetown College in the person of Fathers Kelly
and Cleary.
After the Civil War Archbishop Spaulding, then in charge of the
diocese, saw the opportunity and the challenge of the church to meet
the many needs of the freedmen who without spiritual guidance might
morally retrograde. He therefore called for other workers to offer
their lives as a sacrifice to a noble cause. In Italy at this time
there was Father Barroti, who after having equipped himself for
missionary work prepared to carry the Gospel message to the Chinese.
In 1869, however, he was persuaded to go to the more inviting field of
the freedmen in the United States. After some further instruction in
English and other matters essential to the equipment for service among
these people, he took charge of this Negro congregation in 1867. He
immediately succeeded in securing the cooperation of the Negroes and
the respect of the community. He passed among them as a man of
Christian virtue and an apostle to the lowly. His following so rapidly
increased that it was soon necessary to add wooden buildings to the
original structure and to purchase additional property for a new
building in 1869. To finance these undertakings he had the cooperation
of Father Walters in St. Patrick's.
The new structure, planned to cost about $100,000, was begun in 1874
and completed and dedicated in the midst of impressive ceremonies in
1876. At first it was thought best to place this church under the
patronage of the Blessed Martin de Porrers. According to the
regulation of the church law, however, whereas a chapel could be
designated in honor of an ecclesiastic, a parish church could not be
thus dedicated, but must be named for one of the Saints. It was then
decided to name it for St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa. Upon
the completion of this structure the Negro Catholic congregation was
given a new standing in the community and in the United States.
In 1881 the death of Father Barroti marked an epoch in the history of
this church. For some time there was serious doubt as to how the
congregation could secure the services of some one so well equipped as
this sacrificing churchman. Fortunately, however, the zealous Fathers
of St. Joseph, an order established in England for the special benefit
of the Negroes, came to take up the task. Thoroughly devoted to their
work and believing in the uplift of the Negroes to a plane of equality
with the whites, these Fathers caused the white Catholics much trouble
by imposing upon those visiting St. Augustine's the same restrictions
that some of the Catholic churches after the Civil War began to impose
upon Negroes worshipping elsewhere. Chief among these may be mentioned
Fathers Michael J. Walsh as rector, with Father Girard Wiersma and
Father Francis P. Kerrick as associate pastors. Later he had such
assistants as Father Burke and Father Hohlman. The successor of Father
Walsh was the Rev. Paul Griffith, with Father G. A. Dougherty as
assistant and later an additional assistant in the person of the Rev.
Father H. Bischoff. Father Olds succeeded Father Griffith, having as
his assistant Father O'Connor and Father Mihm. As the church had the
cooperation of Archbishop Spaulding in his day, it was similarly
assisted by Archbishop Baily and especially so by Archbishop Gibbons,
later Cardinal. Among the teachers who made possible the increasing
membership by their valuable work in the parochial school of the
church should be mentioned Miss Mary Smith, later Mrs. W. F. Benjamin,
Mr. Ambrose Queen, and Miss Eliza Ann Cook.[46]
Negro Catholics living in East Washington and worshippers at St.
Peter's and St. Joseph's churches, desirous of having a church of
their own, were responsive to the labors of Father James R. Matthews,
assistant pastor of St. Peter's. He was a native of Johnstown,
Pennsylvania, had studied at St. Charles College and St. Mary's
Seminary in the diocese of Maryland, and was ordained a priest in
1886. He worked so assiduously and energetically for the new
congregation here at Washington, which was then known as St.
Benedict's, that a site for their building was purchased on the corner
of 13th and C Streets, Southeast, about the middle of April, 1893. The
work of excavation was begun on the last day of July and the corner
stone was laid on the 24th of September of that year. Less than eight
months afterward the church was complete and ready for public worship.
An imposing parade, participated in by uniformed white and Negro
Catholic societies of Baltimore and Washington, was a feature of the
occasion. Cardinal Gibbons dedicated the Church as St. Cyprian.[47]