Divisions over occupation or wealth within Methodism therefore imbedded in the movement from its start; they did not merely represent a later declension, but rather the realities of a movement that appealed to groups across the social spectrum.31 A study of churches on the congregational level reveals this clearly. When John Street Chapel was the only Methodist building in New York City, believers could hail the spiritual unity of its members. As John Street Church in the 1790s, the building represented a congregation, one of two (and by 1800, four) Methodist bodies. Occupational and wealth divisions very quickly strained the unity of early Methodism and highlighted the difficulties of preserving a heterogeneous movement.32 But at the congregational level, the wealthiest members, merchant-professionals, attended John Street alongside workingmen. Such elites befriended ministers and could view the church as a unity of believers. While Methodists in New York did not typically share outright their Episcopalian brothers’ tendency toward political Federalism, John Street’s Methodists specifically embraced an organic unity in Christ that functioned very similarly on a social and cultural level.
New York City’s 1796 Methodist classes reveal a church largely drawn from laboring occupations. One-third of all white males in the lists did not appear in the city directories, which suggests that their position was too poor or transient to enter the record. In the occupation categories of government, professional, retail, service, and marine workers, the Methodist society members were, compared to city averages, underrepresented in all categories. Within the service sector, cartmen accounted for two-thirds to three-quarters of the category. Cartmen might be considered closer to artisans in spirit than to other service workers, given their group solidarity, and their ability to regulate entry to their occupation through licensure. The largest job category in the Methodist classes, well above city averages, belonged to artisans.33
Artisans in the early Republic were hardworking, but not necessarily working-class. Artisans typically placed themselves in a middling category between the parasites at the top of society—ranging from bankers to lawyers to landlords—and the under classes at the bottom, with few skills or prospects. Some Methodist artisans had transcended the daily grind of production to manage and oversee shops. The New York Methodist society’s large artisan population thus reveals not a church of the poor, but rather one dominated by a large middling section, many of whom were anxious of their eroding status and increasingly militant in defending it.
During the 1790s, class meetings lay at the center of Methodist spiritual life. Through 1820, New York’s Methodist ministers recorded membership by class lists, not congregation. They listed each class one after the other, numbered consecutively, with no mention of what church each group may have attended. Assuming that geographic proximity to a church made attendance more likely, I identified individual white male Methodists as either John Street or Bowery attendees depending upon their places of residence as listed in city directories. If a class had a preponderance of members identified with one church, I associated the entire class with that church. I have labeled two classes as highly likely to belong to John Street, and two as somewhat likely. I have labeled four classes as probable Bowery classes and one as somewhat likely. And finally, two classes remain ambiguous in their allegiance. In both, about half their members do not appear in the city directories.34
All five of the Bowery and Bowery-leaning classes contain more artisan members than any other occupational category. In each, artisans proportionately outnumbered both city and New York Methodist society averages. Four of the five classes, ranging from 55 to 90 percent artisan, included more artisans than individuals of any occupation labeled as Bowery by residence. In other words, even artisans who lived closer to John Street tended to join Bowery artisans for worship. For example, in class number eleven, the coppersmith Peter Peterson of George Street was the only one of twelve men who lived closer to John Street Church. Although alone by residence, Peterson was among friends occupationally, as he was one of seven artisans (the class also included two cartmen). In class number twenty, a John Street–area shipwright, baker, and shoemaker joined with nail-makers, carpenters, and coopers (as well as laborers and a grocer) who lived closer to the Bowery church. Bowery classes were, more than any other characteristic, artisan classes.35
In comparison, the John Street classes reveal a mixed occupational base. Merchants and retailers appeared in greater numbers than in any Bowery class, but did not numerically dominate any single class. In three of the four classes, retailers comprised roughly the same numbers as artisans, outperforming both the city and Methodist averages for retailers. For example, John Street’s class number thirty contained five retailers—four of them grocers—and five artisans out of fifteen members. John Street class number twenty-eight, the only class led by a merchant, contained five retailers and seven artisans, out of a group of seventeen.36 In that same class, John Wilson may have been a shipmaster, physician, or cartman (the city directory lists all three occupations for that name). In a class that contained no majority of any occupational group, however, Wilson appears more significant than he might in a class comprised of 80 percent artisans, as was the case in the Bowery church.37
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.