d rude manners which characterized so many of
the leading men of his denomination." He was the "veritable hero who
had aided the martyred Torrey in covering the escape of many slaves
from the District of Columbia to Canada and who when by accident he
learned that suspicion rested on him the fear of arrest was so great
on his mind as to induce the paralysis which led to his (Nicoll's)
sudden death."[8]

Some years later a sermon preached at Israel by Bishop John M. Brown,
to whom the writer was a listener, deeply stirred the congregation. At
the time I did not understand what caused the tumult until I learned
from Rev. James Reid, a local preacher, that the church was
negotiating for another lot on which to erect a new building, and the
contention was whether the title to the new site should be held in
trust for the congregation or for the denomination. The people
contended that the property should be held in trust for them; the
bishop, on the other hand, maintained that it should be in the name of
the trustees of the denomination. The people were insistent and won
their contention. A step further was the repudiation of the
appointment made for them by the bishop, and the severance of their
relations with the A. M. E. church made them independent. After a
short interval Israel joined the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church,
which had been set apart in 1870 by the M. E. Church, South.[9]

During these years the Asbury Methodist Episcopal Church was also in
the making. Certain records show January 15, 1836, as the date of the
organization of the Asbury Aid Society. These workers were originally
a part of the Old Foundry Church. When this congregation augmented so
that the gallery occupied by the Negro membership became too congested
for their accommodation, it became necessary to find more suitable
quarters. The old Smothers School House on H Street near Fourteenth
was rented for their use, but it, too, became inadequate, making the
purchase of ground on which to build an immediate necessity. Thomas
Johnson, Lewis Delaney, and Benjamin M. McCoy were constituted the
building committee that secured from William Billings the lot on which
the church was ultimately built. The Foundry Quarterly Conference,
under whose authority they were functioning, elected trustees and a
building committee to secure funds and pay for the building, but no
regular church organization was immediately effected. These
communicants remained under t