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1829:  Wesley Union A.M.E. Church is Founded
1829 Wesley Union AME church is founded in a log building at Third and Mulberry Streets by members of the African Church. It's membership rises to 115 within a year.

George H. Morgan's Annals of Harrisburg, published in 1858, gives a short history of the church's founding:

WESLEYAN UNION (COLORED) CHURCH.--This congregation was organized under the pastoral care of Rev. Jacob D. Richardson, on the 20th of August, 1829.  The organization took place in a log building, which was standing until a few years ago, at the corner of Third and Mulberry streets.

The congregation, at present, worship in a plain, but neat church, at the corner of Tanner's alley and South street, to which they removed November 24, 1839.  Present pastor, Rev. James A. Jones; residence, Tanner's alley.  Preaching every Sabbath morning at 10 o'clock, 2½ P.M., and in the evening at 7½ o'clock.  Class-meetings on Monday and Friday evenings, and on Sunday at noon.  Lecture or discussion on Wednesday evening of each week. note 1

The roots of this church went deeper that 1829, though.  Historian Gerald Eggert notes "In May 1817, Daniel Coker, a black Methodist clergyman from Baltimore, helped organize an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Society in Harrisburg."  With assistance from the local white community, an "African Church" was established at about that time.  A local African American man, Thomas Dorsey, was secretary of the subscription drive, and the only non-white on the board.  Dorsey was also involved in educating the children of Harrisburg's Black community, opening a school for both free and enslaved children in 1817.  

Wesley Union Church was established in 1829 by a group of persons who withdrew from Harrisburg's AME Society.  The church they established affiliated with the AME and by 1830 had 115 members, a quarter of Harrisburg's African American community. note 2

 
Notes:
1. George H. Morgan, Annals of Harrisburg (Harrisburg, PA, George H. Brooks, 1858, Repr. Bowie, MD, Heritage Books, 1994) p. 292.
2. Gerald G. Eggert, " 'Two Steps Forward, A Step-and-a-Half Back': Harrisburg's African American Community in the Nineteenth Century" in Pennsylvania History 58 (January 1991): 1-36, p. 4.  Eggert cites Mary D. Houts, "Black Harrisburg's Resistance to Slavery," (Pennsylvania Heritage, 4 [December 1977]: 10) for Thomas Dorsey's school for African American children; Rev. Jeanne B. Williams to Eggert, July 5, 1989, for specific information regarding the formation of Wesley Union Church; Gerald G. Eggert, Harrisburg Industrializes: The Coming of Factories to an American Community (University Park, PA, 1993) p. 236, for population figures.
 

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This page was updated January 10, 2004.