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Philip Spiess
Herewith CINCINNATI’S AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY: Part IV: Allen Temple: Its Pastors and Its Influence:
A Few Words on the Paucity of Early Sources for African-American History: There are several reasons why we do not have extensive records for the earlier periods of African-American history in America: (1) few people, of any race or color, kept personal records (as, of course, many were illiterate, which simply means that they could not read nor write); (2) African-American folk found it best not to keep minutes of any meetings that they held, as in many places it was illegal for them to hold meetings at all without at least one white man being present; and (3) the newspapers of the day had no interest in reporting the activities of African-Americans, unless they were of some importance to the white community; in 1816, for example, no editor cared much about what went on among the blacks – even the creation of the nation’s first black bishop -- and the blacks were happy to keep it that way: the less publicity they got, the less trouble they had.
A Prefatory Note on the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen: Richard Allen, born a slave in 1760 in the household of Benjamin Chew, a Philadelphia lawyer (yes! there were slaves in the North at that time), rose, by his own endeavors, to become the founder and Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States (that “A.M.E.” seen on so many black churches, particularly in rural areas); he was thus the first African-American bishop in America. [The Benjamin Chew estate, “Cliveden,” in the Germantown suburb of northwest Philadelphia, where Allen lived in his early years, is a property of the National Trust for Historic Preservation (I was head of Research at the National Trust, 1973-1979), and it is open to the public as a museum.] In the latter years of the 18th century and in the early years of the 19th century, the African-American, whether slave or free, was, as you can imagine, in a totally helpless situation. Allen’s working premise, as an eventually freed slave (while still a very young man), was that the African-American could only take his place in American society when he had learned who he was and what he had to offer: blacks had to get together for purposes of education, training, and mutual support, not relying on the white man. Racial unity was the essential first step, and, yes, at that time this meant what we would today call “segregation” – withdrawal from white society for purposes of black self-improvement. Allen’s Christian “rebirth,” inspired by a traveling Methodist preacher, occurred near the end of his teen years, and he promptly converted the rest of his family. The Methodist Society’s classes taught him to read and write, and, even at his young age, he became a leader in the black community. In 1777, at the age of seventeen, Allen purchased his freedom from the slaveholder who owned him, thus making him free but jobless. He worked at various jobs in the Dover, Delaware, area, but he always kept preaching Christianity for the Methodist Church – unofficially (as a “licentiate”), as only white men could be ordained as pastors. In 1786 he was invited by St. George’s Methodist Church in Philadelphia to come and preach (at 5 a.m. on Sundays) to the African-Americans of the city, most of whom were freemen. But St. George’s ended up with more black parishioners than it was prepared to handle, so the African-Americans started their own church. After this church turned Episcopalian, Allen started a new church, the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, in 1794; it was dedicated by Bishop Francis Asbury, the head of Methodism in America, who finally ordained Allen as a Methodist “Deacon” in 1799. Eventually, by 1816, there were enough independent African-American churches in the mid-Atlantic states for them to hold a unifying conference in Philadelphia, of which Allen was chairman; the result of this meeting was the founding of “the African Methodist Episcopal Church” in the United States. Richard Allen was ordained finally as one of the church elders, and at the same time he was elected this new religious body’s first bishop; he was consecrated as such the following day. Within a few short years the new church grew into more states and several regional conferences, and by 1824 the church spread west across the mountains when a call came from Cincinnati to found an A.M.E. church there. (The Ohio Conference of the A.M.E. Church, the fourth such conference, was established in 1830 in Hillsboro, Ohio, with five churches and circuits in western Pennsylvania and six in Ohio.) But here’s an interesting sidelight: in 1820 the first General Conference of the entirely northern A.M.E. Church passed a resolution denying church membership to slave-holders; this was because, at that time, ten percent of the two million African-Americans in the United States were free, and many of these former slaves were beginning to own slaves themselves! (By 1830 there were 3,777 slaveholding African-American families, mostly in the South.) As bishop, the Right Reverend Richard Allen built up the A.M.E. Church in the United States, and when he died in 1831, his funeral was the largest African-American funeral ever held in America up to that time. He had truly earned the title of “the father of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.” And so to Cincinnati’s Allen Temple. . . .
[For more on Allen, see Allen’s own short autobiography: The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labours of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen . . .(Philadelphia: Martin & Boden, 1833); Charles H. Wesley’s Richard Allen: Apostle of Freedom (Washington, D. C.: Associated Publishers, 1935); or Rev. Howard V. Harper’s “Richard Allen,” in Profiles of Protestant Saints (New York: Fleet Press Corporation, 1968), pp. 56-76.]
Allen Temple in Cincinnati: The Allen Temple A.M.E. Church in Cincinnati is the mother church of the Third Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Founded in 1824, it is the oldest operating African-American congregation in Cincinnati and the largest church of the Third Episcopal District. It was named after Richard Allen, founder of the A.M.E. Church [see above], and it began as a congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, one which had separated from the main church (the Old Stone Church or “Wesley Chapel” – not the later, famous one on Fifth Street, which was torn down in the early 1970s) because of prejudicial treatment by the white congregation (which, among other things, did not allow the blacks to sit down, nor were they allowed to witness by shouting out).
This congregation was the first African-American religious society to be organized in Cincinnati; prior to its joining the A.M.E. church, it was known as the Deer Creek Church, founded about 1815. The congregation had petitioned Judge Spencer to form a black church, and he and his partner, Col. J. H. Piatt, offered to donate to them land above Deer Creek, near the corner of Hunt Street and Broadway. The architect and builder of the church was an African-American carpenter and minister, Joseph Dorcus, who also served as the first periodic pastor. Due to a lack of many male members, women often administered the sacraments. The Rev. William Buck, a well-regarded local white minister (later postmaster of Cincinnati), regularly helped serve in the church’s pulpit, as did some of the laymen of the church.
However, desiring a permanent pastor and a black one at that, the church turned to the Rev. James King, a slave living in Lexington, Kentucky, whose owner allowed him to hire out his time and who gave him a pass to travel to the various congregations that he served. After several years of his traveling back and forth between Lexington and Cincinnati, a committee formed by Judge Spencer, chaired by William Lloyd Garrison, and including Wendell Phillips [see previous installments for these latter two gentlemen], conspired to keep King in Ohio. They confiscated his pass and had him arrested, and, when the magistrate examined the pass, he saw that King had come into a free state with consent of his master. The magistrate therefore declared him “as free as I am” – and they kept him in Ohio. For nearly two years he was hidden at Judge Spencer’s house, venturing out under guard, until his former master ceased looking for him, after which his wife Hester (later known as “Mother King”) joined him.
In 1824, following a camp meeting revival, during which the black brethren and black pastors attending were held back from communion until a “second table” had been set up for the blacks, the Rev. King and the Rev. Philip Brodie withdrew without taking communion, as they thought the Bible said God was no respecter of persons. They then led the congregation to join with the A.M.E. church, having petitioned the main A.M.E. church in Philadelphia to become a member church of its denomination. Accordingly, the new church was organized by the Rev. Moses Freeman of Chillicothe (the official representative of the A.M.E. mother church in Philadelphia) on February 4, 1824, at Father King’s Cincinnati house at 218-220 Broadway. The Rev. Philip Brodie became the first full-time pastor.
In the early days, as the congregation grew, there were several meeting places in succession. The first meetings were held either at Father King’s house or in other private homes, or in the basement of Rev. Brodie’s house, known as “Jericho.” Later the congregation moved into a blacksmith shop on North Street near New Street, which came to be known as the “Little Red Church on the Green,” because it was made of rough boards, the front of it being painted red. It was known as the “anti-slavery” church, and its members were harassed by pro-slavery forces, being called “black abolitionists” and worse terms (which you may guess at, but which I will not repeat here). The church, often still known as “King’s Church,” was instrumental in “Underground Railroad” activities in the Cincinnati area.
The next meeting place of the congregation was the “Old Lime House,” a carpenter shop on Seventh Street east of Broadway, the lower story being the lime house and the upper story the carpenter shop. Many new members were migrating blacks from the east, as well as escaping slaves from the south; all believed in a gospel of freedom. As the congregation grew, the whole building was finally turned into the church, and an addition was put on. One of the ministers during this period was the Rev. Job Dundy. [It should be explained, before we go through the succession of ministers that follows, that, in the Methodist Church, pastors are “appointed” annually through a process involving the minister and his family, the congregation, and the District Conference, with the result that pastors are often moved from one congregation to another, sometimes on an almost annual basis.] In 1834, having outgrown the old church, a new church was built on a lot on Sixth Street east of Broadway; Peter Harbeson, a member of the congregation, was the architect and carpenter (the church included brick as well as lumber). The Lord having thus provided, the congregation called the church “Bethel”; later on, it came to be known as “The Old Bethel” or “Bethel Creek.” Ministers during this period included Henry Aderisson, who arrived in 1839, Rev. Charles H. Peters (1841-1842), Rev. Claybourne Yancy (1843), Rev. M. M. Clark, and Rev. Thomas Woodson. In 1846 the first general conference of the national A.M.E. Church was held in Cincinnati; it was a big event in the history of the local church. In 1846 also the Rev. A. R. Green was minister, and the church continued to grow under his care. But there was now the need to move to another location, and the church needed to incorporate under the laws of Ohio; this included the first general roll of church members in 1847. A lot was selected, a new foundation laid at the back of the property, and a little house was built.
E. Garry, from the West Indies, was the next pastor; he is described as having been “very elegant.” Next came the Rev. Leven Gross, “Old Man Eloquent,” a dignified and polished preacher. During his tenure the cornerstone was laid for the new “Allen Chapel.” He was succeeded by Rev. Thomas Lawrence, but the chapel was unfinished, and the congregation met in the basement. So Lawrence went to Pittsburgh and asked the Rev. Charles Avery for funds; he promptly wrote a check for $1500. This allowed the congregation to finish the church (albeit in a “plain manner”); the Rev. Avery himself came to Cincinnati to dedicate the new chapel. Now at last the congregation had a main audience room (sanctuary), a basement (for general meetings), and an office for its minister. Rev. (Elder) Lawrence remained a circuit rider among the Methodist churches for many years, recognized and loved. He was succeeded by the Rev. A. R. Green (again), who (curious, to my mind) passed a resolution “That instrumental music does not tend to the glory of God.” [This seems un-Scriptural to me (given passages in the Old Testament), nor do we have any information at this time about congregational singing.] After his tenure of three years, the Rev. John Tibbs became pastor; it was during his tenure (1856) that another general (national) conference of the A.M.E. church met in Cincinnati. The next pastor (1857) was the Rev. William Newman, succeeded by the Rev. John A. Warren (1858); his office was often the meeting place of the young men of the church. And with the Rev. Grafton H. Graham (1860), we come to a period when the storm-clouds of approaching civil conflict were evident on the horizon; the influence of slavery was felt everywhere in Cincinnati, and it was dangerous for colored men to walk on the streets. Public abolitionist speakers were mobbed, and poor colored people were compelled to flee; Allen Chapel at this time, although having attained a large congregation, was thinly attended. War ensued; after Emancipation, the church filled up again, as a great many former slaves arrived in the city from Kentucky, and Rev. Graham himself moved south to Harrodsburg, Kentucky, being replaced by the Rev. James A. Shorter in 1863. Rev. Shorter finally allowed an organ to be placed in the church [see above], but, because of it, some of the members would not come to church; they were expelled for non-attendance. At this time the women of the church formed the Freedmen’s Aid Society, the purpose of which was to help the freedmen (and women) of the South to find homes and to shelter all who had no place to go. The house back of the chapel served as a hospital. A later pastor, Rev. Henry J. Young, D.D. (1867), built a parsonage, repainted the chapel, completely changed the pulpit, and, it was often said, that “what he could not preach, he would sing.”
I won’t belabor you with the various pastors that came and went during these next several years; let us move on. Rev. Robert A. Johnson arrived in 1870; he began the sale of Allen Chapel and the purchase of a new one, for continued growth and increasing vandalism caused the congregation to seek a new home. Finally, in 1870, the congregation bought the former Bene Israel Synagogue at 538 Broadway, northwest corner of Sixth Street, in downtown Cincinnati (built in 1852), and renovated it from top to bottom. The larger synagogue building, with its barred windows and iron fence, seemed more secure than their previous houses of worship. And there was the symbolic connection: it had been the home of the descendants of the Israelites, who had once been slaves in Egypt, but whom the Lord had set free. So the congregation consecrated its new home as Allen Temple.
At first, there was some financial difficulty due to money owed to the Bene Israel congregation for its building; then there was a fire in 1874. Several charity groups were founded to solve the financial problems, and these groups later established the Temple’s social and welfare services. The Rev. Benjamin W. Arnett, who arrived in 1873, was also a prominent Cincinnatian; he was active in the civic and religious life of Cincinnati’s African-American community in the late 19th century. He became a bishop of the A.M.E. church in 1888 (he was also editor of the proceedings of the Temple’s semi-centennial celebration, cited below). From 1886-1887 he was a member of the Ohio legislature’s House of Representatives, where he worked to repeal Ohio’s “Black Laws” [see Part I: “Origins Up to the Underground Railroad” (Post #4528)]. A historian of the A.M.E. church, Arnett was also a promoter of Wilberforce College, Ohio’s African-American college near Xenia (William Wilberforce was the British member of Parliament, evangelist, and abolitionist who helped push the British Slave Trade Act of 1807 and the Slave Abolition Act of 1833 through Parliament, the latter abolishing slavery in most of the British Empire).
Early on, the congregation of what became Allen Temple established a Sunday School for the youth of the congregation, and in 1866 the Missionary Society of the A.M.E. Church of Cincinnati was established by the church. In 1862, while the church was still at Allen Chapel, leaders of the church organized a branch congregation, known as Brown’s Chapel, on “Kemper Street” (I suppose “Kemper Lane”) in Walnut Hills. Rev. Phillip Tolliver was the first appointed pastor, remaining three years; he built the first church there. Other sister churches which grew out of the Allen Temple congregation were as follows (as of 1874): (1) Union Chapel, M. E. Church, Seventh Street near Plum Street (the old Deer Creek congregation); (2) Union Baptist Church (1835), east side of Western Row, later on Baker Street, then the corner of Mound and Richmond Streets: at first, African-American folk coming to Cincinnati joined the Methodist Church, but later, the Baptists, having become numerous, desired a church of their own; (3) Zion Baptist Church (1845), Third Street near Race Street, then the south side of Third Street, later Ninth Street near Central Avenue: some members of the Union Baptist Church, being dissatisfied by the church’s stance on slavery, organized as the “Anti-Slavery Baptists”; (4) Plum Street Baptist Church (1867), organized as a Mission Church, but constituted as a congregational church in 1871; (5) Cumminsville Baptist Church; (6) Walnut Hills Baptist Church, Willow Street near Chapel Street; and (7) Mount Zion Baptist Church (1873), formed by a group which withdrew from Zion Baptist Church.
In the 1960s, as the African-American community began to migrate from the downtown area, the Allen Temple congregation made several attempts to sell the building and move to a new location. Finally, in 1979, the Allen Temple congregation (as it was still called) moved to Roselawn Baptist Church at 7181 Reading Road. Under the leadership of Rev. Donald Harold Jordan, Sr., the church acquired hundreds of new members, and so in 1998, Allen Temple bought Swifton Commons Shopping Mall in Bond Hill at 7030 Reading Road (sold in 2013 for redevelopment), and in 1999 built a Worship Center in front of the mall. An impressive new church, seating more than 1,000 people, was completed in 2004, being dedicated by Bishop Paul A. Bowers of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World and Bishop Robert V. Webster of the national A.M.E. Church. The church’s latest growth has been in its youth ministries.
The 1852 Allen Temple on Broadway (the old Bene Israel Synagogue building) achieved National Register of Historic Places status in 1975, but it was removed from the National Register in 1999 after it was torn down, having been sold to Proctor & Gamble (which also had demolished, in 1972, the historic 1831 Methodist Wesley Chapel on Fifth Street, site of President William Henry Harrison’s funeral service and the last public speech of former President John Quincy Adams, dedicating the Cincinnati Astronomical Observatory on Mount Adams).
[The early history of Allen Temple and its congregation can be found in Proceedings of the Semi-Centenary Celebration of the African Methodist Episcopal Church of Cincinnati, Held in Allen Temple, February 8th, 9th, and 10th, 1874; With an Account of the Rise and Progress of the Colored Schools; also a List of the Charitable and Benevolent Societies of the City (Rev. B. W. Arnett, ed.; Cincinnati: H. Watkin, 1874; 135 pp.).; also see Alan I. Marcus: Allen Temple: Formerly the Bene Israel Synagogue, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1852-1979 (in the Cincinnati Historical Society; it concentrates on the building).]
Part V: “Cincinnati’s ‘Colored’ Schools” will be posted soon.
[to be continued]
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Thanks Jerry. That’s some welcome comic relief from the comorbidity that crosses our TV screens and even NPR at around 6:00 PM every day.
