Methodist Records of New York City (Manhattan)

John Wesley founded the Society called "Methodists" in 1729, as a movement within the Church of England. Organized Methodism began in America in 1766, when six persons led by Philip Embury met at his home in New York City. They created a Society which in 1768 leased property on John Street and erected the Wesleyan Chapel, the first Methodist meeting house in the colonies. The John Street Methodist Church still occupies the site.

In 1784, following the Revolution, the Methodists of the new United States broke with the Church of England to form the Methodist Episcopal Church. It was only at this point that New York Methodists began to maintain their own marriage and baptismal registers, having previously relied on the Anglican clergy of Trinity Parish to perform these rites. In a report of 1785 the chapel on John Street was first referred to as a "church," with 178 white and 25 black members. The denomination grew rapidly, and by 1800 had four churches and over 1,000 members in the city.

This continuing growth reflected a steady increase in New York City's population. The great period of immigration from abroad was still some decades in the future, and much of the city's new population came from Long Island, Westchester County, the Hudson Valley, New Jersey, and southern New England. Many of these new arrivals were "unchurched," providing fertile ground for the Methodists, who also found converts among foreign immigrants, especially from the British Isles. Whatever their origin, a substantial number of the people attracted to Methodism were members of the city's working class. They were less likely than their more affluent neighbors to have their marriages reported in newspapers, making their church records even more important to genealogists.

The Work Projects Administration (WPA)'s Inventory of the Church Archives of New York City: The Methodist Church (New York: The Historical Records Survey, 1940) includes an historical sketch and list of surviving records for every Methodist Episcopal (M.E.) church that existed in Manhattan. Another basic source, including lists of the ministers who served each church (with dates), is Rev. Samuel A. Seaman, Annals of New York Methodism — A History of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the City of New York, 1892. It was this same Samuel A. Seaman who just over a century ago made the meticulous handwritten transcripts, now bound in thirteen volumes, which form the NYG&B collection of Methodist records.

Prior to 1838 most of the baptisms and marriages in the city's M.E. churches were recorded in a joint citywide register, rather than at the individual churches. By 1838, however, each church had begun maintaining its own registers. The NYG&B collection includes copies of the early joint registers as well as the separate registers for almost all of the M.E. churches organized prior to 1850.

Rev. Samuel A. Seaman transcribed these records while they were still in the custody of the individual churches. Many of the original church registers were subsequently placed at the Methodist Historical Society, formed in 1892, which later transferred them to their present home at the New York Public Library. The NYPL Methodist collection is not identical to the NYG&B Methodist collection (which is also now housed at NYPL). Each collection covers some churches that are not in the other. Also, where both have records of the same church, the NYG&B transcripts end about 1890 and are limited to marriages and baptisms, while the registers in the NYPL collection often extend into the early 20th century and include membership and other records.

The NYPL Methodist Collection consists of 486 volumes, copied on 40 reels of microfilm. It will be found in the library’s Manuscripts and Archives Division as “Methodist Episcopal Church records, 1791-1945,” call no. MssCol 1978; access is restricted, a permit must be requested at the division. A finding aid is available online (search for the title at catalog.nypl.org, and a link to the finding aid will appear).

In addition to congregations that were affiliated with the national M.E. church, the NYG&B collection also includes the original records of the so-called Stillwell's or "Methodist Society" church in Chrystie Street, which Samuel Stillwell and his nephew the Rev. William Stillwell founded in 1820 after leaving the M.E. denomination. These original records are now in the NYPL Manuscripts and Archives Division as “Methodist Society of the City of New York records, 1820-1851,” call no. MssCol NYGB 18038; advance request required. Rev. Seaman’s transcripts of these records are in volume 1 of the NYG&B collection as shown below.

The NYG&B collection does not include records for any of the city's African M.E. (A.M.E.) or African M.E. Zion churches, the earliest of which dates from 1796 when the Rev. Peter Williams organized a separate congregation for African-American Methodists. Also missing from the NYG&B collection are records for the congregations of the separate Methodist Protestant Church organized in 1830, and for several other very small Methodist denominations. For the Methodist Protestant churches see Frank Biebel, Methodist Protestants and the Union Cemeteries of Brooklyn (1844-1894) (NYG&B, 2007), NYPL Milstein Division call no. *R-USLHG *WLC-6063 [electronic resource].

Some genealogical guides state that Methodist church records are likely to be less helpful than those of other denominations. This caveat certainly does not apply to the New York City Methodist records. Many 19th century New York City genealogical problems have been solved only because of these records. Anyone working on a 19th century New York City family which appears to have been Protestant, but with no identified church affiliation, should search for them in the Methodist collection. Anyone working on a family from areas surrounding the City should also peruse these records, as there were few such families that did not have members who moved into the City during the 19th century.

In 1994 Picton Press published New York City Methodist Marriages 1785-1893, a two-volume index by William Scott Fisher to all 41,000 marriages in the NYG&B Methodist collection. In the introductory material to volume 1, Fisher reviews in detail the contents of the NYG&B collection, adding the Family History Library (FHL) film numbers for each church. He also identifies 13 churches with pre-1893 marriages that are in the NYPL collection but not in the NYG&B collection, as well as eight churches with pre-1893 records that are listed in the 1940 WPA inventory but are not in either the NYPL or NYG&B collections. These additional pre-1893 marriages are not included in Fisher’s two volumes.

As Fisher indicates, some original records that are not in the NYPL collection may still be in the custody of the churches or their successors. Records of closed churches will also be found at the C. Wesley Christman Archives of the New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, in White Plains, New York. In some cases records of a church may be found in more than one location.

Table A: Methodist Records of NYC in the NYG&B Collection

By Volume (See Table B for further identification of each church)

In the NYG&B Library the volumes were numbered 8 (Stillwell’s) and 10-21. At NYPL they have been renumbered 1-13, and those numbers are shown below. The NYG&B collection is now catalogued as “Methodist Episcopal Church, New York, N.Y., records, 1785-1893, 1894,” NYPL Milstein Division call no. NYGB AZ+ Loc 09-526, vols. [or Books] 1-13.

The 13 volumes are also available on four reels of microfilm from the NYG&B Collection, as “Records of the Methodist Episcopal Church, New York, N.Y., 1785-1893,” NYPL Milstein Division call no. *R-USLHG *ZI-1243. Reel 1 (which is also FHL film 17779) covers vols. 1-4; reel 2 (FHL 17780) vols. 5-8; reel 3 (FHL 17781) vols. 9-12; and reel 4 (FHL 17782) vol. 13.

* loose sheet inserted at this page.
** By Rev. Ferguson, church not indicated

Table B: Methodist Records of NYC in the NYG&B Collection

By Church

¹Church history and records described under this number in WPA Inventory cited above.

²Sullivan Street was organized 1833 as a Methodist Protestant Church, became M.E.1842.

by Harry Macy Jr., FASG, FGBS

Originally published in The NYG&B Newsletter, Winter 1993

Updated May 2011

© 2011 The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society

All rights reserved.