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Madison Street Methodist Episcopal Church is a Methodist Episcopal Church built in 1874 [1] in Chester, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located at 701 Madison Street. The building is currently being used by the Wesley House Community Corporation as a homeless shelter. [2]
Due to the preachings of Bishop Francis Asbury in Chester, a Methodist meeting was formed in 1810 in the home of Mrs. Mary Withey who kept a house of public entertainment known as the Columbia House located at what is now Fifth and Market Streets. [3]
The Methodist meetings moved to the home of John Kelley in 1818. Mr. Kelley had previously been a preacher in St. George's Church in Philadelphia. When the services became too large for his home, services were moved to the Chester Court House where Bishop Asbury preached on several occasions. [4]
The services soon outgrew the capacity of the Chester Court House and it was decided that a small church should be built. Matthew L. Bevan secured a lot on the corner of Second and Bevan Street and a small chapel named Asbury Chapel was built.
Initially there was no regular minister for the Asbury Chapel and the congregation had to rely on circuit riders to preach to them. However, in 1845 the size of the congregation warranted the appointment of a resident pastor and the Reverend Isaac R. Merrill was assigned. The congregation continued to grow under Reverend Merrill and plans for construction of a larger church were initiated.
In 1848 a green serpentine stone church was erected on a plot of land on the north side of Fifth Street between Market and Edgemont Avenue. The building was used until 1874.
In 1872, another lot was purchased on the northeast corner of Seventh and Madison Streets and construction was initiated. On July 17, 1874, the Madison Street Methodist Episcopal Church was dedicated and opened for worship. [5]
David Reese Esrey, the cotton goods manufacturer and banker, was president of the Board of Trustees of the Madison Street Methodist Episcopal Church and contributed liberally to the construction of the church. [6]
On June 19, 1983, the Madison Street Methodist Episcopal Church congregation merged with the Christ United Methodist Church located at 600 Dutton Mill Road in Brookhaven, Pennsylvania. [7] [8]
The former Madison Street Methodist Episcopal Church is currently being used by the Wesley House Community corporation as a homeless shelter for families and single women. The facility has 17 rooms and provides shelter to over 240 individuals/75 households each year. [2]
Chester is a city in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States within the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area. It is the only city in Delaware County and had a population of 33,972 as of the 2010 census.
The Methodist Episcopal Church (MEC) was the oldest and largest Methodist denomination in the United States from its founding in 1784 until 1939. It was also the first religious denomination in the US to organize itself on a national basis. In 1939, the MEC reunited with two breakaway Methodist denominations to form the Methodist Church. In 1968, the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren Church to form the United Methodist Church.
Richard Allen was a minister, educator, writer, and one of America's most active and influential Black leaders. In 1794, he founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), the first independent Black denomination in the United States. He opened his first AME church in 1794 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Absalom Jones was an African-American abolitionist and clergyman who became prominent in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Disappointed at the racial discrimination he experienced in a local Methodist church, he founded the Free African Society with Richard Allen in 1787, a mutual aid society for African Americans in the city. The Free African Society included many people newly freed from slavery after the American Revolutionary War.
The Christmas Conference was an historic founding conference of the newly independent Methodists within the United States held just after the American Revolution at Lovely Lane Chapel in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1784.
Barratt's Chapel is a chapel located to the north of Frederica in Kent County, Delaware. It was built in 1780 on land donated by Philip Barratt, owner of Barratt Hall, and a prominent local landowner and political figure. Barratt, who had recently become a Methodist, wanted to build a center for the growing Methodist movement in Delaware.
Levi Scott was an American bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1852.
St. George's United Methodist Church, located at the corner of 4th and New Streets, in the Old City neighborhood of Philadelphia, is the oldest Methodist church in continuous use in the United States, beginning in 1769. The congregation was founded in 1767, meeting initially in a sail loft on Dock Street, and in 1769 it purchased the shell of a building which had been erected in 1763 by a German Reformed congregation. At this time, Methodists had not yet broken away from the Anglican Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church was not founded until 1784.
The history of Methodism in the United States dates back to the mid-18th century with the ministries of early Methodist preachers such as Laurence Coughlan and Robert Strawbridge. Following the American Revolution most of the Anglican clergy who had been in America came back to England. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, sent Thomas Coke to America where he and Francis Asbury founded the Methodist Episcopal Church, which was to later establish itself as the largest denomination in America during the 19th century.
Harry Hosier, better known during his life as "Black Harry", was an African American Methodist preacher during the Second Great Awakening in the early United States. Dr. Benjamin Rush said that, "making allowances for his illiteracy, he was the greatest orator in America". His style was widely influential but he was never formally ordained by the Methodist Episcopal Church or the Rev. Richard Allen's separate African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia.
Hinde Street Methodist Church in Hinde Street, Marylebone, London, is Grade II listed with Historic England. It was built 1807-10 and rebuilt in the 1880s.
Chester-Bethel Methodist Church is a Methodist church built in 1873 in Wilmington, Delaware, United States. The congregation, which dates to 1780 is the oldest Methodist congregation which has continuously gathered in the state of Delaware.
The Reverend Frederick Asbury (F.A.) Cullen was an Methodist minister, community and civil rights activist based in Harlem, New York City. He supported legal and social protests, and was influential in working with the youth of his community.
Meridian Street United Methodist Church, known in its early years as Wesley Chapel, the Meridian Street Methodist Episcopal Church, and the Meridian Street Methodist Church, is a Methodist church located at 5500 North Meridian Street in Indianapolis, Indiana. The church originated from the first Methodist congregation in Indianapolis that began in a log cabin in 1821–22 with fifty members. The congregation worshipped at several locations and erected four earlier churches on Monument Circle and along Meridian Street in downtown Indianapolis before it merged with the Fifty-first Street Methodists in 1945. The first service at its North Meridian Street location was held on June 29, 1952. Designed by the architectural firm of Russ and Harrison, the Georgian-Colonial-style, red-brick church is noted for its architecture, pipe organ, and formal parlor. The Aldersgate addition on the west side (rear) of the church was consecrated on October 4, 1989.
St. Martin's Church is an Episcopal church founded in 1699 in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located at 22 Church Street, only 500 feet from the Delaware River. It is one of the earliest and last riverfront churches in Pennsylvania. The cemetery at St. Martin's Church contains a memorial commemorating war veterans from the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, the American Civil War, and the Spanish–American War who are buried in the cemetery.
St. John's Church is an Episcopal church founded in 1702 in Concord Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located at 576 Concord Road and is an active worship center.
St. Paul's Church is an Episcopal church founded in 1702 in Chester, Pennsylvania. The church is a part of the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. It is located at 301 East 9th Street and is an active worship center.
The Third Presbyterian Church was a historic Presbyterian Church founded in 1872 in Chester, Pennsylvania. It was located at 9th and Potter Streets. The church was the location of the first summer bible school in 1912. The congregation closed in 1986 and was thereafter owned by the Chester Historical Preservation Committee. It was a stone Gothic Revival building designed by the noted Philadelphia architect Isaac Pursell. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in November 2019 but severely damaged by a five-alarm fire on May 28, 2020.
Asbury AME Church is an African Methodist Episcopal Church founded in 1845 in Chester, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is the second African Methodist Episcopal church founded in Chester behind the Union African Methodist Church in 1832. Asbury AME Church is located at 1712 Providence Avenue and is an active worship center.
David Reese Esrey was an American businessman and banker from Chester, Pennsylvania.
Coordinates: 39°52′25″N75°24′19″W / 39.873530°N 75.405378°W
