A member of the National Register of Historic Places since 1985, Wesley United Methodist Church has played an important role in Austin’s history since it was founded in 1865. Established after the end of the Civil War as a parish for freed persons, the first official church meeting was held on March 4, 1865 in the basement of the Tenth Street Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in Austin, where members had once attended as slaves. The congregation’s first pastor was the Reverend Isaac Wright, who served throughout the church’s formative years, from March 1865 to January 1868. On January 22, 1874 the “Holy Seventeen,” an interracial brotherhood, met with Bishop Thomas Bowman at Wesley Chapel for the organization of the West Texas Conference, a religious organization for African Americans. The spring of 1882 saw the church move to the corner of Ninth and Neches Streets, after which it was commonly referred to as “Wesley on the Hill.” The church’s present location is a plot of land facing Hackberry, Navasota, and San Bernard Streets, which it has owned since 1929. Citations: Daniels, B. (2008). A History of the Methodist Church. [i]In Testimony of Faith[/i]. Austin, TX: Morgan Printing. History. (n.d.). Retrieved from www.wesleyunited.org/about-wesley/history

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