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This inventory is one of several prepared under the auspices of the Preservation of the Black Religious Heritage Project of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. The project identifies, acquires, and preserves research materals essential for the documentation of African-American religious life.
The originals in this collection are owned by the Zoar United Methodist Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and have been microfilmed by the Schomburg Center with grant funds provided by the Lilly Endowment.
Zoar United Methodist Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, traditionally the oldest African American congregation within the United Methodist Church, was founded in 1794 by eighteen free African-Americans, fifteen men and three women. The founders had separated themselves from the white-dominated St. George's Methodist Episcopal Church but chose to remain in Methodism with its traditions of early opposition to slavery, evangelical style of preaching, and ministering to social needs. The early members first worshipped from house to house, then met in an abandoned butcher shop at Brown and Fourth Streets in the Campingtown area of Philadelphia. Originally known as African Zoar, a church was constructed near the site and dedicated on August 4, 1796 by Bishop Francis Asbury.
Although Zoar was mentioned as a separate church in the records of the Philadelphia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church as early as 1811, it was administered by St. George's, which supplied its pastors. Zoar established two mutual aid societies, the Beneficial Philanthropic Sons of Zoar and the Female Beneficial Philanthropic Society of Zoar in 1826. During this period, a number of members left Zoar to join Richard Allen in the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
In 1832, a “plan of separation” from St. George's was adopted to take effect in three years. In 1835, the “Covenant of Assumption” made possible the assignment of Zoar's first African-American pastor, Rev. Perry Tilghman, who served until 1844. Zoar was chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on June 14, 1837. During the 1830s and 1840s, the Church was presumably a link on the Underground Railroad along with other African-American Methodist churches in Philadelphia.
A series of conferences of Colored Local Preachers held at Zoar in the 1850s and 1860s resulted in the creation of the Delaware Annual Conference by the 1864 General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Delaware Conference was comprised of twenty-one African-American Methodist churches from Philadelphia, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. Its creation allowed for the ordination of local preachers and travelling elders and gave African-American congregations greater control over their own affairs.
The records of the first meeting of the Delaware Conference list 140 members of the Zoar congregation. As the membership grew throughout the 1870s and 1880s, larger facilities became necessary. At a sheriff's sale in June 1883, a benefactor, Joseph M. Bennett, purchased the red brick Reformed Episcopal Church at Twelfth and Melon Streets for $3200 and donated it to the congregation. Zoar Methodist Church was incorporated in 1885. The title to the property was still subject to the payment of ground rents, a perpetual lease often held and assigned by a separate owner. By 1889, however, Zoar purchased the ground rents from Girard Life Insurance Company and its title became free and clear. In 1896, it purchased a building at 1310 Parrish Street for use as a parsonage. The Parrish Street house was replaced by one at 3849 North 18 Street (purchased in 1945) and was sold to tenants in 1956.
The first Usher Board was organized in 1886. Under Charles H. Dorsey, it became a model for other congregations and a forerunner of the National Church Ushers Association, founded in 1919. In 1897, under Pastor James H. Richardson, the Church underwent extensive remodelling, financed by a mortgage and loans from the Methodist Church Board of Home Missions and Church Extension. The first Layman's Association and Missionary Society were organized at about that time. After a period of internal dissension and financial difficulty, final payment was made on the mortgage in 1917. Four houses at the rear of the Church, 1203-09 North Street, were purchased in 1920 for Church use as well as rental income. Additional remodelling and modernization of the Church and the addition of a community center took place in 1926.
During the 1920s, Zoar began a Day Nursery, a Mothers and Babies Clinic, Parents Association, and a Mother's Club and Welfare Foundation. A Zoar Community Building and Loan Association was organized in 1924 to provide mortgages for African Americans unable to obtain them from banks. The Armstrong Association (Urban League) worked out of the new community center. The onset of the Depression resulted in a decrease in the Church's income although it contributed to unemployment relief for parishoners.
With the merger of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Methodist Protestant Church in 1939, the African-American conferences were organized into a separate unit, the Central Jurisdiction. The Jurisdiction existed until the mid-1960s when it was dissolved into the mainstream geographical structure of the United Methodist Church. The churches of the Delaware Conference, including Zoar, were transferred to the Newark, Philadelphia, and Peninsula Conferences of the Northeast Jurisdiction in 1964 at the centennial meeting of the Conference held at Zoar.
Zoar's longtime pastor Rev. Joshua E. Licorish (1911-1987) was Secretary of the Conference. He served as pastor of Zoar from 1957 to 1981 and played a role in urban renewal and civil rights issues in Philadelphia during the 1950s and 1960s. Licorsh participated with the Rev. Leon H. Sullivan in the late 1950s boycotts of Philadelphia corporations and subsequent meetings to end discriminatory hiring practices. He also oversaw additional renovations of the Church in 1959 and the organization of the Zoar Community Development Corporation in preparation for the construction of low income housing. During Licorish's administration, the membership of Zoar numbered about 900. Licorish was succeeded by Rev. Clyde Henry, who was succeeded by Rev. Ralph Banks in 1985.
The trustees of Zoar also acted as trustees for the St. John's Methodist Church of Spring Lake, New Jersey. The Church, founded in 1887 and open only in the summer months, served members who were employed at the resort hotels of Spring Lake or as domestics for summer residents.
The collection is divided into four series: Delaware Conference; Delaware - Philadelphia District; Zoar Methodist Church; and St. John's Church, Spring Lake, New Jersey. The Zoar Methodist Church Series, largest of the four, is divided into seven subseries: History, Vital Records, Organizational Records, Pastors, Financial, Legal, and Bulletins and Miscellaneous Printed Material.
The series contains minutes dating from the original organizational meeting in 1864 through its first twenty-five years of existence. The growth of the conference is documented in annual statistics, records of personnel changes, and reports of committees including temperence, freedman's aid, Sunday Schools, and missions. Individual annual reports of each member church are also included in the minutes. The reports often discuss administrative and financial difficulties.
Other significant early material in the series includes membership rolls as well as reports and minutes of layman's conferences and associations. (Additional layman's reports are scattered throughout the Official Board and Joshua E. Licorish sub-series of the Zoar series). Also included are records of disciplinary proceedings against clergymen (1884-1934). These contain minutes of hearings, supporting documents, and decisions in cases often involving intoxication, embezzlement, or sexual misconduct.
The dissolution of the Delaware Conference of the Central Jurisdiction and its merger into other geographic conferences is documented by minutes, resolutions, and other supporting material of its centennial meeting in 1964.
The series includes financial reports and memoranda concerning meetings and other routine administrative matters. Additional reports may be found in the Licorish papers of the Pastor's series.
The ZOAR UNITED METHODIST CHURCH series, 1841-1986, is divided into seven sub-series. The History sub-series includes souvenir journals which commemorate various anniversaries at Zoar and provide brief narrative histories as well as lists and photographs of parish committees and activities. Background research material for the histories, much of it gathered by Rev. Licorish, includes lists of pastors, early members, and important dates in Zoar history. There are additional notes relating to Zoar's history among Licorish's papers in the Pastors series.
The Vital Records sub-series in this collection is sparse. Early records include some membership lists and Sunday school rolls dating from 1879 and a brief listing of unemployed aided by the Church during the Depression. Later material comprises a few baptismal and marriage certificates from the 1940s and 1950s as well as an extensive membership survey taken when Rev. Licorish became pastor in 1957. Members were asked to fill out a two-page questionnaire concerning their background and opinions of church life. The survey draws a portrait of a working class membership, many born in the South, employed as domestics, postal clerks, nurses, porters, Navy Yard or railway workers, who ask for better management of the church, greater unity, attention to youth, and a return to a time when the Church was an active social center for its membership.
The Organizational Records sub-series is arranged according to traditional Methodist administrative structure mandated by the Book of Discipline. It contains incomplete minutes and reports dating from 1887 of the Official Board and the Board of Trustees. The Official Board, which administers the affairs of the church, is comprised of representatives of the Board of Trustees, Stewards, Women's and Men's organizations, and various other commissions and committees. The Board of Trustees is the legal body entrusted with the management of Church property. The Board minutes reflect the continuing efforts of Church leaders to stabilize finances, increase membership, and encourage participation in Church affairs as well as community outreach.
There are additional organizational records of various Church commissions and committees. Six commissions, Christian Social Concerns, Education, Membership and Evangelization, Music, and Stewardship and Finance are mandated by the Methodist Church. Other committees serve traditional functions such as community outreach, women's programs, and building campaigns. These records primarily include reports of activities and scattered correspondence. The documents of the Stewardship and Finance Commission contain detailed, but incomplete, statistical and financial material. Other progress reports may be found in Rev. Licorish's copies of budgets and quarterly conference reports in the Pastors sub-series.
The Pastors sub-series contains little information other than scattered statistical reports prior to Rev. Licorish's twenty-four year administration. The Licorish material includes substantial notes for sermons and for several history projects such as a 1967 pamphlet on the life of early Methodist preacher Harry Hosier (c.1750-1806). Licorish also maintained copies of financial and other reports containing his notes. His service as Secretary of the Delaware Conference and as a member of the Interfaith Interracial Council of the Clergy and other community boards is only sparsely documented and there is very little correspondence.
The Financial sub-series contains many lists of individual contributors and amounts, most dating from the Licorish administration. It also includes miscellaneous ledgers detailing receipts and disbursements.
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The Legal sub-series includes deeds and mortgages for church property dating from 1841 covering the church on Melon Street, parish houses, and rental properties on North Street. The deeds reflect not only the outright purchase of properties, but also the transfer of ground rents, perpetual leases sold separately and amounting to a double ownership characteristic of feudal property. Also significant are title searches documenting the ownership and debt of properties and correspondence for renovation projects.
The Bulletins and Miscellaneous Printed Material sub-series includes an incomplete series of Zoar Church bulletins and calendars of activities as well as miscellaneous bulletings of other area churches. There are also miscellaneous clippings concerning parish activities or local issues and several photographs of the gymnasium in the 1930s and a speaker in the 1960s.
The ST. JOHN'S CHURCH series, 1887-1964, documents the activites of a summer parish in Spring Lake, New Jersey administered by Zoar Trustees and serving the employees of resort hotels. It contains correspondence regarding repairs, invoices for summer festivities (fairs, ice cream socials), legal documents, and clippings detailing the history of the church and the need for a major fundraising campaign in the 1960s.
Shadows (1826). NYPL Art and Architecture Collection.
One of 700,000 pictures in the NYPL Digital Gallery
