First Cambria AME Zion Church
Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Formed 1873 in the loft of the Woodvale Tannery by workers there. Organized as Cambria Chapel A.M.E. Zion Church, 1874, at Napoleon and Dibert Sts. About 1877 it moved here. Washed from its foundation in the 1889 flood but later restored.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1873, workers at a Johnstown tannery gathered in a loft to form a congregation of their own, part of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church that had grown out of Black Americans' determination to worship free of discrimination. Organized formally the next year, the church soon moved to this site. When the catastrophic Johnstown Flood tore through the valley in 1889, the building was swept from its foundation, yet the congregation rebuilt and endured.
Why it matters
It embodies the resilience of an industrial-era Black community that built and rebuilt its own institutions in the face of both prejudice and disaster.
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Related events
- · Johnstown Flood of 1889
Themes & tags
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