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St Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church

Location: SE corner of Maple & High streets, Corydon. (Harrison County, Indiana)

Installed: 2003 Indiana Historical Bureau and St. Paul's A.M.E. Building Fund Organization

ID# : 31.2003.1

Text

Side one:

Free blacks and former slaves organized an African Methodist Episcopal congregation in Corydon by 1843. In 1851, church trustees purchased land in Corydon in order to build a church and for school purposes. In 1878, church trustees purchased land at this site and later built a frame church.

Side two:

In August 1975, the congregation dedicated the brick church adjacent to this site. William Paul Quinn, appointed A.M.E. missionary 1840, established many congregations in frontier Indiana; elected Bishop 1844. Many early churches served as schools and enriched black social, cultural, and political life.

Keywords

Religion, African American

Annotated Text

Side one:

Free blacks and former slaves organized an African Methodist Episcopal congregation in Corydon by 1843.(1) In 1851, church trustees purchased land in Corydon in order to build a church and for school purposes.(2) In 1878, church trustees purchased land at this site and later built a frame church.(3)

Side two:

In August 1975, the congregation dedicated the brick church adjacent to this site.(4) William Paul Quinn, appointed A.M.E. missionary 1840, established many congregations in frontier Indiana; elected Bishop 1844.(5) Many early churches served as schools and enriched black social, cultural, and political life.(6)

Notes:

(1) Emma Lee Thornbrough, Negro in Indiana Before 1900: A Study of Minority (Indianapolis, 1993), 32; Coy D. Robbins, Reclaiming African Heritage at Salem, Indiana (Bowie, Maryland, 1995), 74.

(2) Photocopy of recorded deed, April 8, [recorded April 10] 1851.

(3) Catherine Kelley Summers, Harrison County Indiana Churches (s.l., 1984), 118; The Corydon Democrat, February 28, 1973; photocopy of photograph of frame church (no source).

(4) The Corydon Democrat, August 27, September 3, 1975.

(5) Paul Griffin, "A Brief Account of the Development and Work of African Methodism in Ohio and Indiana, 1830-1865, " Black History News and Notes, No. 23 (November 1985), 4-5; L. C. Rudolph, Hoosier Faiths, A History of Indiana Churches and Religious Groups (Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1995) 563.

(6) Griffin, "A Brief Account . . ." p. 7; Rudolph, 565.