Bethel, now the Metropolitan
Church, at the arbitrary action of Bishop Daniel A. Payne in the
matter of the appointment of the Rev. John W. Stevenson as pastor of
Union Bethel Church and the refusal to remove him. For these reasons
63 members decided to withdraw from the African Methodist Episcopal
denomination and organized themselves in the Shiloh Hall on L Street,
near 16th, Northwest, as the First Congregational Church of Washington
in the District of Columbia. William T. Peele, who for several years
had been a local preacher and class leader at Union Bethel Church was
one of the number--in fact, the leader of the recalcitrant
communicants. Church services for the new congregation were held in
the meeting place of the Salem Baptist Church on N Street near 17th.
Here they could meet only in the afternoon on Sunday. Other quarters
were then secured on 18th Street near L and M Streets. On October 5,
1881, the name of the new organization was changed to that of the
Plymouth Congregational Church of Washington. Their leader, William T.
Peele, was then regularly ordained and installed as their pastor by
Dr. Holmes of Baltimore, assisted by Dr. J. E. Rankin, then pastor of
First Congregational Church, Dr. William Patton, President of Howard
University, W. W. Hicks, and S. P. Smith. The church attached itself
to the New Jersey Association of Congregational Churches at the
fourteenth annual meeting held in the First Congregational Church in
April, 1882. The church then purchased at a cost of $4,500 a site at
the southeast corner of 17th and P Streets, on which it built by 1887.

William T. Peele, to whom this body rallied as its first pastor
tendered his resignation July 26, 1888, and for several months the
church was without a pastor. Dr. Sterling N. Brown of Cleveland, Ohio,
entered upon the pastorate April 1, 1887, and rendered a most
successful service. Under his guidance they evolved steadily from
Methodism to Congregationalism.

Dr. Alexander C. Garner became the next pastor in 1896 and for
twenty-five years led the church both temporally and spiritually. The
church has been honored by his being chosen to represent the
Congregationalists at national gatherings. The entire church mortgage
debt was cancelled during Dr. Garner's incumbency, when all the
churches were making strenuous and successful efforts to the same end.
In fact, his successful career had much to do with his call to the
direction of the growing spirit