ZION METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH (COLORED)

HUDSON,

  COLUMBIA COUNTY, NEW YORK

By Captain Franklin Ellis¹⁴³

¹⁸⁷⁸

     This society was organized March 12, 1855, by Rev. Wesley Marshall.  It then comprised a membership of twenty-five persons.

     In the year following the church bought of the Baptist society their conference-room, on the corner of North Third and Partition streets, and fitted it up for a place of worship.  This was used as the regular place of meeting until the spring of 1860, when the society united with the Wesleyan* Methodists, the combined organization retaining the name of Zion church.  The Wesleyans had previously purchased the old Episcopalian church, corner of North Second and State streets, for the sum of eighteen hundred dollars , and at the time of uniting the former Zion church paid the sum of three hundred and sixty dollars as their share of the expense.  This building was improved at various times, and is now valued at $8000.

     The pastors (as near as may be in the order of their service) have been Revs. Wesley Marshall, John a. Williams, -----Rees, -----Butler, Joseph P. Thompson, Dempsey Canaday, Jenkins Williams, Josiah Biddle, J. S. Powell, Joseph P. Thompson, Joseph G. Smith, James H. Anderson, E. J. Miller, Thomas O. R. Williams.  The latter, who is the present pastor, began his service here in May, 1878.  The present membership of the church is one hundred and ten, of whom sixty-five are probationers.

*On the 15th of May, 1843, Wm. Cummings, James M. Hill, Franklin P. Livingston, John Jackson, Moses Johnson, and their successors, were incorporated, to be called and known as "the Trustees of the First Wesleyan Methodist Church in the City of Hudson."  Very little of their history can be ascertained.