African Wesleyan Methodist Episcopal Church, Brooklyn

This congregation was a spin-off from Sands Street M. E. Church. On 18 January 1818 the church was incorporated as a satellite of the Sands Street M. E. Church, after the number of Black congregants at that church exceeded the capacity of the "colored gallery" there. In 1819, the trustees of Sands Street imposed a fee of $10 per quarter on the Black worshippers, compelling the majority of them to secede to form their own church. The first trustees for the congregation were Peter Cruger, Israel Jemison, Caesar Sprong, Benjamin Cruger and John E. Jackson.

In 1854 the congregation sold its property on High Street and purchased a former Presbyterian Church on Bridge Street between Myrtle Avenue and Johnson Street for $12,000.1

• 1Henry R. Stiles, ed., Civil, Political, Professional and Ecclesiastical History of the County of Kings and the City of Brooklyn from 1683 to 1884 (New York, N.Y., United States: W.W. Munsell, 1884), 1030-1032.