Green Hill's House and the First Methodist Conference

One mile south of here stood the house of Green Hill, a devoted Methodist who opened his home for one of the most significant gatherings in American religious history. In April of seventeen eighty-five, Bishop Francis Asbury and a gathering of preachers from circuits across Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina climbed the stairs to the large upper room of Hill's house. What convened there was the first Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church ever held in the United States, meeting just months after the denomination formally organized itself at the Christmas Conference of December seventeen eighty-four.

The delegates mapped out circuits, resolved disputes, and established the patterns that would guide American Methodism for generations. Green Hill served as host and participant. His house became a landmark on the North Carolina preaching circuit, and Hill himself remained a pillar of the early church until his death in the eighteen twenties.