Old Methodist Church in John Street

Illustration by Peter C. Smith and Joseph B. Smith (1798-1876). Engraved by John Hill (1770-1850) and printed by Erastus Smith Williams (1821-1884). Original title: A Correct View of the Old Methodist Church in John Street N. York. Text on print: The first erected in America, Founded A.D. 1768. Source: New York Public Library. The temple was 42 feet wide by 60 feet long and contained the Methodist library. Below, some comments by I.N. Phelps Stokes (The Iconography of Manhattan Island, ...1915) about this engraving:

This is the first Methodist Church erected in America, although services were held from 1766 to 1768 in a rigging-loft at 120 William Street. The house shown in the view to the right and partly in front of the church was the parsonage, which contained a library, and was built many years before the church. According to the colonial law, none but the established service could be performed in what was commonly called a church; and places for public worship belonging to dissenters therefore were to have some appendage about them which should cause them to be classed among ordinary dwellings. Whence it became necessary to affix a fire-place and chimney to the Methodist church, merely for the purpose of eluding so preposterous a regulation. The walls were constructed of ballast-stone, and the face was covered with a light blue plaster. The church was called Wesley’s Chapel.

A fine lithograph of this church was published, probably shortly after 1844, by Endicott & Co., from a drawing by Joseph B. Smith and with the title and inscription: The First Methodist Church and Parsonage in America. / John Street New York / Church Edifice dedicated by Philip Embury 30th October 1768. There is also a scarce, tinted lithograph by the same artist and lithographers, copyrighted in 1844, and showing the old rigging-loft, the first church, erected in 1768, the second church as rebuilt in 1817, and the present building, constructed in 1841. On this print, besides the views of the churches, there are three tablets containing the names of the boards of trustees. The lithograph is inscribed to the trustees and members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church in John Street, New York, by Joseph B. Smith.

An interesting oil painting of the south side of John Street, from William to Nassau Street, is owned by the family of the late Rev. F. G. Howell, of Brooklyn, and depicts conditions as they existed prior to 1817. This painting was engraved on steel by Lewis Delnoce and published in 1868 by Jos. B. Smith & Co. The engraving reveals only about two-thirds of the original painting. Mr. Howell’s family possesses also an original notebook mostly in the autograph of Mr. Smith and containing the names and many of the signatures of the original 259 subscribers to the large lithograph, which was issued at five dollars per copy, as well as the names of 202 subscribers to the lithograph of the church alone. Mr. Howell once owned a watercolor sketch of the south side of John Street, probably the original from which the painting was made. This drawing, which is now in the N. Y. Historical Society, is doubtless the sketch referred to in a leaflet advertising the Delnoce steel engraving of 1868 as having been “made by him [J. B. S.] upon the spot when a mere youth.” A copy of this leaflet and also the original copyright of the plate, dated July 27, 1868, are still in the possession of Mr. Howell’s family.

The author possesses a lithograph published by H. R. Robinson, September, 1846, showing “The Rigging House,” 120 William Street, with an historical notice printed below the view. The Borden Collection and the Neill Collection each contained an impression of this view, these being the only other copies known.

Du Simitière, in his description of public buildings in New York in 1769 (Du Simitiére MSS. in Ridgeway Branch, Library Company, Philadelphia), refers to the early Methodist Church as follows: ‘‘a Tabernacle for one Webb a half pay officer & Barrack master in N. Y. in Golden Hill.”

In early days that portion of the city bounded by the present William, John, Fulton, and Cliff Streets was known as Golden Hill, the highest point, which is still in existence, being directly behind the buildings at Nos. 19-23 Cliff Street, at the head of Ryders Alley; John Street, east of William, was during this period called Golden Hill Street. In the immediate neighborhood of the old rigging-loft occurred the ‘‘ Battle of Golden Hill,” wherein was spilled the first blood shed in the American Revolution.

No. 120 was not demolished until the summer of 1900, although the building was remodeled and two stories added some time between 1846 (the date of the lithograph in the author’s collection, above referred to) and 1861, the date of a view reproduced in Valentine’s Manual for 1862, in which view a high building occupies the site of No. 120. The site is now covered by a twelve-story loft building, occupied by Lehn & Fink, wholesale druggists. The house adjoining it to the north (No. 122), also shown in the lithograph of ‘‘The Rigging House,” is still standing, and is one of the oldest buildings in the city. According to a letter from Thomas B. Gilford, dated July 8, 1887, this house was purchased, in 1773, by his grandfather, Samuel Gilford, who resided there until the beginning of the Revolution, returning after the war and occupying the house until his death, in 1821. In this letter, Mr. Gilford says that the house, when purchased in 1773, was very old. “It was built of bricks imported from Holland, and laid in a cement that is as imperishable as the bricks themselves.”