EPWORTH MEMORIAL CHURCH AT CLEVELAND, O.
Here is this Episcopal rector, in 1750, eighteen years before a Methodist chapel was erected in New York or Sam's Creek, Maryland, reporting there was then a Methodist chapel in Boston! Dr. Cutler says it "had been built."
Who built this chapel, whether English Methodist soldiers or some of Whitefield's followers, who might have been pressed out of the dead churches, we do not know, but it was a Methodist chapel. It might have been the former; it may have been the latter. We admit the work did not abide. But that was not the first time that Methodism failed in Boston. Boardman came to Boston, and is said to have formed a class here in 1770, or near that time. But when Freeborn Garrettson visited Boston, in 1787, no trace of Boardman's class could be found. When William Black came, a few years later, he found no trace of Freeborn Garrettson's work; and though Mr. Black had a great revival, when Jesse Lee came, in 1798, no fruit of Mr. Black's labors were found. It still remains true, on the authority of Dr. Cutler, who wrote from personal observation, that there was a Methodist chapel in Boston in 1750; and, if so, it was the first ever erected in America.
CHAPTER XVI.
WESLEY AND AMERICAN METHODISM.
So far as we are able positively to determine Methodism in America originated with immigrants from Ireland. To Barbara Heck must be given the honor of delivering the first Methodist exhortation, which aroused Philip Embury to return from his backslidings to God and give himself to the work of the ministry of Methodism. Blessed be the name of Barbara Heck! An angel would rejoice to share her honors! Who can estimate the value of that earnest personal appeal to that card-playing company?