Mother African Zoar Methodist Episcopal Churchyard
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Mother African Zoar Methodist Episcopal Churchyard

Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, USA

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  • Get directions North of Brown Street, west of 4th Street
    Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19123 United States
    Coordinates: 39.96399, -75.14496
  • This cemetery is marked as being historical or removed.
  • No longer accepting burials
  • Cemetery ID:

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In 1787, Richard Allen led most Black members out of the Saint George Methodist Episcopal Church and eventually into a new denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. However, some African Americans remained in the Saint George's congregation. Several years later, in 1794, eighteen of these members began holding their own religious services. They first met in homes; then in 1796 they purchased a lot and built what would become the African Zoar Church north of Philadelphia's city limits at that time in a neighborhood called Campington. On August 4, 1796, Reverend Francis Asbury dedicated the church building at Fourth and Brown Streets.


"Mother" Zoar church moved in 1883 when the congregation purchased the former The Reformed Episcopal Church of the Covenant, a Methodist Protestant denomination, on Melon Street. The following year, the church asked permission from the Board of Health to relocate 100 burials from the churchyard to Olive Cemetery. However, some remains were dumped in a pit on Richmond street, near Clearfield Street, near the waterfront in Port Richmond, in 1886.


The current status of the remains deposited along Richmond Street is unknown. It is presumed that at least some of the remains from the Zoar cemetery on Brown Street were relocated to Olive Cemetery. Burials in Olive were relocated to Eden Cemetery in Collingdale, Delaware County, in 1923.


The Zoar congregation later reunited with the Methodist Church and today is the Mother African Zoar United Methodist Church.

In 1787, Richard Allen led most Black members out of the Saint George Methodist Episcopal Church and eventually into a new denomination, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. However, some African Americans remained in the Saint George's congregation. Several years later, in 1794, eighteen of these members began holding their own religious services. They first met in homes; then in 1796 they purchased a lot and built what would become the African Zoar Church north of Philadelphia's city limits at that time in a neighborhood called Campington. On August 4, 1796, Reverend Francis Asbury dedicated the church building at Fourth and Brown Streets.


"Mother" Zoar church moved in 1883 when the congregation purchased the former The Reformed Episcopal Church of the Covenant, a Methodist Protestant denomination, on Melon Street. The following year, the church asked permission from the Board of Health to relocate 100 burials from the churchyard to Olive Cemetery. However, some remains were dumped in a pit on Richmond street, near Clearfield Street, near the waterfront in Port Richmond, in 1886.


The current status of the remains deposited along Richmond Street is unknown. It is presumed that at least some of the remains from the Zoar cemetery on Brown Street were relocated to Olive Cemetery. Burials in Olive were relocated to Eden Cemetery in Collingdale, Delaware County, in 1923.


The Zoar congregation later reunited with the Methodist Church and today is the Mother African Zoar United Methodist Church.

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  • Added: 17 Jan 2009
  • Find a Grave Cemetery ID: 2290097