he sole management and control of the
Foundry Church until the organization of the Washington Conference in
the Civil War. Originally there were two Negro preachers, one a
deacon, the other a licentiate, and two exhorters in these early days.
There were three stewards, two black and one white. These constituted
the officiary and were members of the Foundry Quarterly Conference.

After the Annual Conference of 1841, when there were, according to the
stewards' records, 423 Negro members, an appeal was made to the
Quarterly Conference of the Foundry for a preacher to take more direct
supervision of the church. By order of the bishop, Rev. James M.
Hanson, a supernumerary of the Foundry Church was appointed to take
the charge of Asbury as its regular minister. Though a separate
charge, Asbury was not a separate station, and it continued in
subordination to the Foundry Church. After Hanson's appointment,
regular weekly meetings were established, but the white leaders did
not seem to succeed, for four of them had by this time resigned. In
1845 there was but one white leader remaining, and he did not meet
regularly with the Negro leaders.[10] Again in 1851, therefore, there
was an appeal to the presiding bishop and elders of the Baltimore
Annual Conference (white) praying for a separate establishment,[11]
and the request was finally granted in the Civil War.

Union Bethel (Metropolitan) A. M. E. Church was organized July 6,
1838, as a branch of Israel A. M. E., with Clayton Durham as pastor,
assisted by John Cornish. They met in a little house which stood in
the rear of one Mr. Bolden's residence on L Street near Fifteenth
Street. William H. Moore took charge in 1840, after which regular
appointments annually followed. In 1841 there served one Mr. Moore,
who was reappointed, and in 1842 Edward Waters began an incumbency of
two years. In 1844 Adam S. Driver became pastor and remained two
years. He was succeeded in 1847 by Thomas W. Henry. In 1848 Alexander
Washington Wayman, whose name frequently figures in the history of the
church and denomination, appeared on the scene, followed in 1850 by W.
H. Moore. In 1851 Wayman returned to Union Bethel and remained two
years. In 1853 John R. V. Morgan, destined to occupy a unique figure
because of his oratorical ability, was pastor. Savage L. Hammond, who
was appointed in 1854, served also the next year.[12]

The first work towards the erection of the present Metropolitan
African Me