September 27, 1798 — to the Board of Trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia,
ASB_VOL3.PDF, PDF page 215
It is not clear from this letter what was involved in the controversy at St. George’s Church. To it evidently was related the division which resulted in the church and which is described in the appended note to this letter.
NEW YORK STATE1
September 27, 1798
TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE METHODIST
EPISCOPAL CHURCH IN PHILADELPHIA,
I am informed there is some ground of complaint made by Jacob Baker and James Doughty2 related to a late purchase they have made in what they think the church Trustees or major part are indebted some pounds, in which they have been led to expend money. These are to require you forthwith if you judge it necessary to order an examination and arbitration of the matter, the Trustees3 choosing one man of the Society and the above-mentioned persons to make a choice of another, these may choose a third. Observe how or by whom it is to be paid will be an after matter. You are now to inquire into the merits and justice of the matter and an opinion in writing must be given by the referees.
In so doing you must oblige your friend and brother,
F. ASBURY
The Historical Society of the Philadelphia Conference and Old St. George’s Methodist Church, Philadelphia
Notes (3)
- According to the Journal, Asbury was at the Widow Sherwood’s on September 27. ↩
- Baker and Doughty were trustees. ↩
- In 1801 occurred the first break in the unity of Philadelphia Methodism. Those early Methodist laymen were earnest, determined, strong-minded men. They must needs live up to the strict rules of the Discipline and to withstand the opposition, often quite vocal, of their interested neighbors. So the old records tell us certain decided differences arose in Old St. George’s in the first year of the new century. Some say they originated in the board of trustees over repairing the church. There is an intimation that the trouble lay deeper than a question of repairs and really arose from the political excitement, for this was the time of the bitter feud between the followers of Jefferson and those of John Adams. Boehm says, “Such was the excitement that it separated families and friends and members of the church. I was urged on every side to identify myself with one political party or the other” (p. 65). Even the presiding elder became involved. Asbury records: “Dec. 30, 1800, while in South Carolina I received a letter from the North [probably from Haskins]. I was presented with a petition from eighty male members of the Society in the City of Brotherly Love entreating me to do what I had no intention of doing; that was to remove Brother Joseph Everett, Presiding Elder from the City. “Failing to obtain satisfaction from the Conference, over fifty of the most prominent members withdrew from Saint George’s in June, 1801, and organized the Union Methodist Church, and rented part of the Whitefield Academy on Forth Street, then occupied by the University of Pennsylvania. Bishop Asbury and Richard Whatcoat were appointed by the Conference committee to unify the disunited church. This they accomplished in part through a remarkable broadside which they issued and the next year the Union Church was back again in the fold, but as an entirely separate Society, and so from disunion came union and enlarged work, for soon Union became as large and influential as the mother Church, as ever God maketh the wrath of man to praise him.” (Pioneering in Penn’s Woods, The Philadelphia Conference Tract Society, 70-71.) ↩