In 1716 there arrived in New York the Rev. William Tennent with his three sons, Gilbert, William, Jr., and John, from the County Armagh. After a period of labor in New York State he was called to the pastorate of the Presbyterian church at Neshiminy, Penn., where he established “The Log College” in 1726, himself an eminent scholar. He trained a number of godly and useful young men for the ministry, among who were Samuel Blair and his own three sons. This college was the foundation of which the present Princeton University was built and all those whom I have mentioned, as well as others who graduated, became leaders in the denomination. It would be superfluous for me to weary you with an account of all the great Presbyterian ministers who came to our shores from the Emerald Isle. Suffice to say that the names of Makemie, Mackie, Hampton, Tennent, Blair, Drs. Neill, Junkin, Elliott, Murry, Allison, Potts, Patterson and Hall stand out in letters of gold in the successful history of that church.
1760. A party of Irish emigrants might be seen at the Custom House Quay in Limerick, preparing to leave their native land for these congenial shores. One of the company, a young man with thoughtful look and resolute bearing, entered the vessel and from the deck preached a farewell sermon to those friends who were to be left behind. This was no other than Philip Embury, who was destined to play a prominent part in the Methodist denomination in America. It was in 1766 that he first conducted services in New York in his own house to five people. As the congregation increased he removed to a rigging loft, then building with his own hands the first Methodist church in the new world, which was called “Wesley Chapel” after the founder of the denomination in the old land. It was situated on John street, and on Oct. 30th, 1768, Embury preached the sermon of dedication.
Sometime in 1770, after Rev. Robert Williams, another fellow countryman arrived in New York, he removed to Camden Valley with several Irish families, then a vast wilderness, and organized the Methodist society at Ashgrove, which was named after another Irishman, Thomas Ashton, and there he labored until his death in 1773. At the age of 45 years his remains, after several removals and not even a stone to mark the spot where slept the silent dust, now rests under a marble shaft erected by the National Local Preachers’ Association of the Methodist Episcopal church in the village cemetery at Cambridge, N. Y., on which the following inscription appears: “Philip Embury, the earliest American minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, here finds his last resting place.” Born in Ireland, an emigrant to New York, Embury was the first to gather a little class in that city to set in motion a train of influences which resulted in the founding of the John street church, the cradle of American Methodism, the introduction of a system which has beautified the earth with salvation and increased the joys of heaven.
It is worthy of note that this inscription was penned by a famous fellow countryman of Embury, the Rev. Dr. John Newell Maffitt, the silver-tongued orator of southern Methodism.
HONORABLE CHARLES ALEXANDER,
Of Providence.
Vice-President of the Society for Rhode Island.
Simultaneously with Embury’s ministry in New York another Irishman, Rev. Robert Strawbridge, who was born at Drumsnagh, County Leitrim, and who, like Embury, had been a preacher in Ireland, settled at Sams Creek, Frederick County, Maryland, where he organized several Methodist societies. He had all the characteristic traits of his fellow countryman. He was generous, energetic, versatile and somewhat intractable to authority. During his life he was poor and his family were often straitened for food. His members appreciated his genuine zeal and self-sacrifice, so they took care of his little farm gratuitously in his absence.
Strawbridge founded Methodism in Baltimore and Hartford counties, where he raised up several preachers, among who were numbered Owen, Stephenson, Perigau, Webster, Watters, Gatch, Haggerty, Durbin and Garrettson. We discover him penetrating into Pennsylvania and then arousing the population of the eastern shore of Maryland. We trace him at last to the upper part of Long Green, Baltimore County, where an opulent and generous public citizen, who admired his character and sympathized with his poverty, gave him a farm free of rent for life. It was during one of his visiting rounds to his spiritual children that he was taken sick at the home of Joseph Wheeler and died in the summer of 1781. His grave may be seen today in the Mount Olivet cemetery at Baltimore, where his greatest success was achieved.
Robert Williams, with whom we became acquainted on his arrival in New York and whose passage was paid from Ireland by his friend, Thomas Ashton, and who took charge of the John street church, New York, after Embury, was the pioneer Methodist in Virginia, forming a society in Norfolk, 1772, which was the germ of the denomination in the state. In 1773 he traveled in various sections of the state, preaching and forming societies, then extending his ministry into North Carolina, where he also was the first to plant Methodism. A signal example of his usefulness was the conversion of Jesse Lee, the heroic founder of Methodism in New England. He died on the 26th of September, 1775.
“He was a plain, pointed preacher, indefatigable in his labors,” says a historian of the church, and another says, “His grave is unknown but he will live in the history of the Methodist church forever.”