EDWIN SCHELL | By Edwin Schell As the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference prepares to meet this May in Baltimore for the first time since 1986, this history column will include highlights of Methodism since it began in this historic area. 1796 - General Conference in Baltimore named and set boundaries for six annual conferences: Baltimore, Philadelphia, New England, Virginia, South Carolina and Western. The territory of the Baltimore Conference includes west of Chesapeake Bay and Susquehanna River to Pennsylvania-New York and Pennsylvania-Ohio lines, Northern Virginia and Shenandoah Valley almost to Kentucky.
1799 - Since 1773, 825 traveling preachers had enrolled, most serving less than five years.
1800 - A great revival broke out at General Conference in Baltimore and spread to counteract the doldrums of the late 1790s. General Conference issued a broadside against slaveholding.
1801 - Methodists built Wilk Street Church in Fells Point in Baltimore and left Strawberry Alley to a black congregation.
- Methodism expanded from Georgetown to South Washington.
- Camp meetings began in the west and spread east to win thousands to Christ.
- Baltimore City Station began a Male Free School.
1803 - Ohio organized as a free state. Thousands left slave states, including Maryland, for free soil.
- Early Ohio governors Tiffin and Worthington were former Baltimore Conference Methodists.
1808 - General Conference, held at Eutaw Church in Baltimore, heard a stirring sermon by the Rev. McKendree and elected him bishop to replace Bishop Whatcoat who had died.
- General Conference enacted ?Restrictive Rules,? sometimes call a ?Constitution,? which carried into The United Methodist Church merger of 1968.
The Rev. Edwin Schell is the executive director of the United Methodist Historical Society. |
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