children." The society was in the strictest sense fraternal, there being
only eight charter members: Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, Samuel Boston,
Joseph Johnson, Cato Freeman, Cæsar Cranchell, James Potter, and William
White. By 1790 the society had on deposit in the Bank of North America
£42 9s. id., and that it generally stood for racial enterprise may be
seen from the fact that in 1788 an organization in Newport known as
the Negro Union, in which Paul Cuffe was prominent, wrote proposing a
general exodus of the Negroes to Africa. Nothing came of the suggestion
at the time, but at least it shows that representative Negroes of the
day were beginning to think together about matters of general policy.

In course of time the Free African Society of Philadelphia resolved into
an "African Church," and this became affiliated with the Protestant
Episcopal Church, whose bishop had exercised an interest in it. Out of
this organization developed St. Thomas's Episcopal Church, organized in
1791 and formally opened for service July 17, 1794. Allen was at first
selected for ordination, but he decided to remain a Methodist and Jones
was chosen in his stead and thus became the first Negro rector in the
United States. Meanwhile, however, in 1791, Allen himself had purchased
a lot at the corner of Sixth and Lombard Streets; he at once set about
arranging for the building that became Bethel Church; and in 1794 he
formally sold the lot to the church and the new house of worship was
dedicated by Bishop Asbury of the Methodist Episcopal Church. With
this general body Allen and his people for a number of years remained
affiliated, but difficulties arose and separate churches having come
into being in other places, a convention of Negro Methodists was at
length called to meet in Philadelphia April 9, 1816. To this came
sixteen delegates--Richard Allen, Jacob Tapsico, Clayton Durham, James
Champion, Thomas Webster, of Philadelphia; Daniel Coker, Richard
Williams, Henry Harden, Stephen Hill, Edward Williamson, Nicholas