African Union Church
The photo on the second slide is a photo of the African Union Methodist Church.
Though the AME Zion Branch Militant may have been considered the largest and most influential church in the village, other religious institutions began to build churches there. In the early 1840s, there were reports of an African Union Church located in New York City with a small number of attendees. Apparently, the African Union was known as an "independent sect of Methodists" that was affiliated with a main church in Delaware. According to the Colored American newspaper, there was an African Union Church headquarter in New York City located on Fifteenth Street.
In 1837, William Mathews, the deacon, bought land on 85th Street and decided to construct a church. He built a branch in Seneca Village with a "small frame building," according to the Colored American newspaper. Furthermore, it created burying sites, just as AME Zion Church had done, near the African Union Church branch in Seneca Village.