Methodist Population Report

This chapter talks about how the American Journal of Ithaca published a table with the Methodist population in the United States, which reported nearly fifty thousand Methodists in New York that were divided between the New York and Genesee conferences. The chapter highlights the difficulty in giving a precise number of the Methodists in New York as the boundaries of the two conferences crossed state lines. It also reviews the table, which suggests that more Methodists lived in New York than in any other state at the time. The chapter highlights how the table lists separately the number of white Methodists and the number of Black Methodists. It points out that the number of Black men and women constituted less than 3 percent of Methodist church membership in both New York and Genesee conferences.