 Philip Embury founded the Methodist Society in 1766. This is the third building on this site. The first building here was Wesley Chapel, in 1768.  

 This became the First Methodist Episcopal Church of New York in 1784 when the Methodist Episcopal Church as a denomination was formed at Christmas time in Baltimore. 

 There was a second building which replaced Wesley Chapel in 1818  

 Replaced by the present building in 1841. 

The Methodists took an even more active role in social justice when one of its first African-American members, a slave named Peter Williams, expressed fear of going on the auction block after his Loyalist master high-tailed it back to Europe. Wesley Chapel bought Williams, and granted him his freedom in 1784. A decade later, Williams had his own prosperous tobacco business and a home on Liberty Street nearby. And in 1796, he and one of John Street&amp;rsquo;s black deacons formed the country&amp;rsquo;s first all-black Methodist congregation, the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, out of Wesley Chapel. That church now operates out of Harlem.  

When a fire ravaged John Street Church&amp;rsquo;s entire block in 1839, many of its members wondered if the parish should move uptown. &amp;ldquo;No one was living downtown anymore,&amp;rdquo; Radmacher said. &amp;ldquo;It had become the Financial District, and many churches had already left the neighborhood.&amp;rdquo; But the trustees &amp;mdash; loath to abandon such a historic spot &amp;mdash; decided to stay put, erecting the current John Street structure in 1841.  

Wesley Chapel still had strong ties to the Church of England and became a refuge for loyalists during the War of Independence.&amp;nbsp;  

 It wasn&amp;rsquo;t immune, to the pranks perpetrated by occupying British soldiers, who would slash women&amp;rsquo;s skirts or dig pits in front of the chapel so churchgoers would trip on their way out of services. The British government had to give the Methodists a guard to protect them during worship, which was far more than they gave John Street&amp;rsquo;s treasonous neighbors.  

Even before the war, the John Street community was surprisingly diverse &amp;mdash; black men and women, including slaves, could become members &amp;mdash; and it even welcomed black preachers and deacons, although black and white members had to sit apart from one another.  

'The oldest Methodist Society in America organized in 1766 by Philip Embury and Barbara Heck, constructed here in 1768 Wesley Chapel, the first Methodist meeting house in America. The present church, the third on this site was completed in 1841' 

John Street United Methodist Church

 At John Street Methodist Church, Kaplan discuses the battle of Golden Hill, which he describes as New York's Boston Massacre. 