Four Steeples over the City Streets. Kyle T. Bulthuis

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      Figure 3.3. Location of Methodist churches in the 1790s, also showing expansion of settlement from colonial era. John Street lies near merchant homes, whereas the Bowery church encompasses laboring districts. The Zion Chapel, here in the rough Five Points neighborhood, would move west in 1800. (Map created by Alanna Beason, derived from map from United States Census Office, 1886.)

      Close to retail and wholesale shops on Pearl, William, and Broadway Streets, John Street attracted more merchants. The Bowery church drew artisans from nearby marine industries and artisan shops on Cherry and Second Streets. But statistically, artisans grouped together in even greater numbers than their places of residence suggested. On the other hand, retailers did not form a single class of their own, but joined with a minority of artisans and other occupational classes. At the Bowery church, occupation trumped other factors, suggesting a common identity based upon work, along the lines of the artisan republicanism described by historian Sean Wilentz.³⁸ At John Street, in contrast, the classes modeled what Methodist leaders wanted the church to be, by including rich and poor from all walks of life, revealing a unity in the body of Christ.

      Most Methodist class leaders were artisans. But these leaders did not embrace a working-class consciousness, for they led meetings at both John Street and Bowery churches. Many leaders were older members of long residence in the city, the “Old Friends” whom Asbury described in his diary. Many were masters, often at odds with their journeymen coreligionists. Others worked in prosperous trades. For example, class leader Philip Arcularius of 11 Frankfort Street worked as a master baker during the Revolution. During the 1790s, city directories list him as a tanner, the occupation of his father-in-law, in which he also held master status. When journeymen shoemakers banded together to raise wages, Arcularius joined with fellow tanners in opposing their demands. Although he led a women’s class in 1796, few rank-and-file journeymen, shoemakers especially, would care to be associated with Arcularius, and as such, they probably headed north to attend the Bowery church. Other class leaders worked in the building trades, where an expanding port economy and steady growth northward on Manhattan Island ensured continuous employment for masons, carpenters, and shipwrights. In contrast, shoemakers and tailors found that large-scale manufactories undercut the prices paid for their work, and they struggled to achieve competence, or comfortable subsistence, in the increasingly competitive market.³⁹

      It is easy to exaggerate the differences between artisans at this time, however, especially among Methodist leaders committed to unity. Although a shoemaker, Peter McLean led a class at John Street, probably alongside master tanner Arcularius. Elias Vanderlip, a shoe- and bootmaker, led classes at the Bowery alongside leaders who were carpenters, masons, and plaster of paris manufacturers. But differing class attendance patterns suggests that many of the Methodist rank-and-file detected a difference and voted with their feet.

      John Street’s classes contained merchants, artisans, unskilled laborers, cartmen, and tavern keepers, all joined in worship. The inclusion of all occupations suggests an organic social conservatism, in which the society of the class mirrored the city as a whole. John Street members apparently sought security and social stability in their class meetings: the revivals of this decade largely occurred uptown at the Bowery church, not at John Street. This religious conservatism also meant a greater willingness to associate with the new rich and entrepreneurial artisans and merchants who broke with older craft traditions. In contrast, more militant artisans went uptown to church. By bonding together, they highlighted the split emerging between social classes. As at Trinity, the upper-middling individuals who led John Street appear to have clung to the principle of a holistic, organic society.

      Silent Struggles: Blacks in New York Churches, and Their Early Steps to Independence

      Blacks had long worshiped at Trinity and John Street churches, where leading Episcopalians and Methodists had opposed slavery. This stance contrasted to some degree with most other churches in New York. During the 1790s, as both Trinity and John Street enjoyed increasing prestige and wealth, New York’s free black community grew extensively. Most members of both churches did not welcome free blacks as equal members, and continued to associate free blacks with slaves. Consequently, while blacks in these churches did not break from the larger institutions, they carved out separate spaces for worship, where they might enjoy their new status and occupy positions of leadership. While in other northern cities African, Revolutionary, or reform identities may have predated the black church, in New York it appears that black men first acted in the public sphere largely as black churchmen. That is, for them religious, and specifically denominational, identity came first.