Page:A short account of the rise and progress of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in America.djvu/76

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and do as well as they could, until the next General Conference of the white Preachers, when he thought an African Conference would be established by that body, to be governed by the same rules with the whites. There were Preachers from New-Haven, Long Island and Philadelphia attended this Conference. On the 27th the Conference closed. Abraham Thompson was appointed to take the charge of Zion Church; William Miller, of the Asbury Church; Simon Murray, of the Wesleyan Church at Philadelphia; (he was first elected Deacon, and the necessity of the Society there requiring it, he was elected Elder, that he might take the charge of the church in that place,) and William Carman was elected Deacon for Long Island. James Varick was appointed District Chairman, a kind of Presiding Elder over the Preachers in New-York, Long Island and New-Haven; that is, to preside at all their quarterly Conferences. This is an office that is not known in our Discipline; but, under the present existing circumstances, it could not well be avoided.

The order of the names of the Preachers on the minutes, were as follows, viz. For New-York, Zion Church, Abraham Thompson, Leven Smith, Christopher Rush, John Dungy, (who afterwards left the connexion) Charles Anderson, James Smith, Timothy Eatto, Samuel Bird, and Peter Vanhas—ames Varick, District Chairman—10. Asbury Church; William Miller, Abraham Marks, Christopher Atkerson, and John Palmer—4. New-Haven; James Anderson. Long Island; William Carman and Elijah Jackson—2. Philadelphia, Wesleyan Church;