John Street Methodist Church
New York, New York, New York
Marker Inscription
John Street Methodist Church was organized in 1766 by a group of Irish emigrants under the leadership of Philip Embury and his first cousin, Barbara Heck. The "Irish Palatines", as they were referred to, were descendents of refugees from religious persecution in German. They were converted to Methodism in County Limerick by John Wesley, and carried their zeal to the new land where they formed the first Methodist Society in continental United States. This plaque has been erected by the Irish Institute and the American Irish Historical Society.
The Story
John Street Methodist Church was organized in 1766 by a small band of Irish Palatine immigrants led by Philip Embury and his cousin Barbara Heck — descendants of German refugees who had fled religious persecution and later been converted to Methodism by John Wesley in County Limerick. Carrying that zeal to New York, they founded what is remembered as the first Methodist society in the continental United States.
Why it matters
This congregation marks the birthplace of organized Methodism in America, a movement that would grow into one of the nation's largest religious traditions, and it honors the immigrant and female founders who planted it.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- MĒRCER LABS0.1 mi away · 21 Dey Street
- 9/11 Memorial & Museum0.2 mi away · 180 Greenwich Street, New York, NY
- Hall des Lumières0.3 mi away · 49 Chambers Street, New York, NY
- Cloud Gallery0.3 mi away
- Museum of American Finance0.3 mi away
- Bureau0.3 mi away · 112 Duane Street
Attractions
- Saint Paul's Chapelnearby · 209 Broadway, New York, NY
- Woolworth Building0.1 mi away
- Barthman's Sidewalk Clock0.1 mi away · Maiden Lane
- Site of the Beach Pneumatic Subway0.2 mi away · 1 Murray Street
- One World Trade Center0.3 mi away · 285 Fulton Street, New York, NY
- New York Stock Exchange0.3 mi away · 11 Wall Street
Food & drink
- Maman1.4 mi away
- Bluestone Lane1.4 mi away
- Yaso1.4 mi away · 30 Hudson Street, Jersey City, NJ
- Sweetgreen1.4 mi away
- Semicolon Cafe1.4 mi away
- Krispy Pizza1.4 mi away · 33 Hudson Street, Jersey City, NJ
Places to stay
- M Social Hotel New York Downtown0.1 mi away · 55 Church Street, New York, NY
- Residence Inn New York Downtown Manhattan/World Trade Center Area0.1 mi away · 170 Broadway, New York, NY
- Holiday Inn0.1 mi away · 51 Nassau Street
- The Cloud One New York-Downtown0.3 mi away · 133 Greenwich Street, New York, NY
- Radisson Hotel New York Wall Street0.3 mi away · 52 William Street, New York, NY
- World Center Hotel0.3 mi away · 144 Washington Street, New York, NY
Places data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Hours and details change — call ahead.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Philip Embury
- · Barbara Heck
- · John Wesley
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Emma Goldman
New York, NY
The anarchist, orator, and free-speech advocate Emma Goldman lived at this address from 1903 to 1913, the years in which she published her influential radical magazine Mother Earth. A fierce champion of free speech and free love, she became one of the most watched and controversial voices in Progressive-era America. In 1919, amid the Red Scare, the government deported her to the Soviet Union.
Frances Hodgson Burnett Memorial Fountain
New York, NY
In the Conservatory Garden at the north end of Central Park stands a quiet bronze fountain honoring Frances Hodgson Burnett, the English-born American author whose children's books—most enduringly The Secret Garden—shaped generations of young readers. The fountain's two children, a boy playing a flute and a girl holding a bowl, echo Mary and Dickon from that beloved 1911 novel, set in a walled garden much like the one that surrounds them here. Dedicated in the 1930s after Burnett's death, the memorial was a gift meant for the children of the city, tying the author's imaginative world to a real public garden they could wander.
Betty Smith 1943
New York, NY
Betty Smith drew on her own hardscrabble girlhood in Brooklyn's Williamsburg tenements to write "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn," the beloved 1943 novel of a bookish girl coming of age amid the poverty and stubborn hope of early-1900s immigrant New York. The book became an instant bestseller, and its 1945 film adaptation — a landmark of American cinema — earned Academy Award recognition. This house, later restored, is where the author lived and worked as that enduring story took shape.
Richmond Hill Branch
New York, NY
In 1899, as the free public library movement swept American cities, Queens resident Ella Flanders — a member of the civic-minded 20th Century Club — launched a free circulating library out of Arcanum Hall on Jamaica Avenue, planting the seed of what became the Richmond Hill Branch of the Queens Borough Public Library. Women's clubs like hers were the quiet engines behind countless early American libraries, raising funds and stocking shelves at a time when tax-supported reading rooms were still a novelty. Among its first trustees was Jacob Riis, the reformer and photojournalist whose exposés of tenement life had made the case that knowledge and opportunity should reach every neighborhood.