St. George's, Cradle of American Methodism

This plain brick church on North Fourth Street holds a remarkable distinction: it is the oldest Methodist church in continuous use anywhere in the United States. The congregation organized in seventeen sixty-seven, meeting first in a sail loft on Dock Street. Two years later, John Wesley's missionary Joseph Pilmore made the first public declaration of Methodist principles in America right here, and held the first Methodist prayer meeting on this continent in this very sanctuary.

Francis Asbury, who would become the first bishop of American Methodism, served as its pastor, eventually riding two hundred seventy thousand miles on horseback to spread the faith across the young nation and ordaining more than four thousand ministers. Philadelphia's old German neighborhood gave American Methodism its earthly address.