22. Dock Street Location of first Methodist meeting
In his famous poem, Four Quartets, T.S. Elliott wrote:
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
It was on Dock Street where the Methodist movement first began to meet regularly in a sail loft that they very quickly outgrew. It is fitting to end our walking tour where the Methodists began. It is our hope that through this tour, “at the end of all your exploring” you will know the Methodist movement in some ways “for the first time.”
The Methodist movement continues to this day in this country and around the world. Some thirty million people comprise the World Methodist Council, a worldwide organization of many Methodist denominations. The American part of the story had one of its beginning points here. Other beginning stories of Methodism in America could be told in Savannah, Georgia, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Wilmington, Delaware, New York City, and Baltimore, Maryland. If you ever visit these other places we hope you will take some time to learn about the stories there too of the people called Methodists.
