A Community Landmark by the John Wesley Church Project of Oxford, Maryland
Welcome to the John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church in Oxford, located in Talbot County Maryland. Built on a tiny patch of land outside the waterfront town of Oxford, this unassuming one-room building without a steeple and without indoor plumbing, once served as an important place of worship and gathering for generations of Talbot County African-Americans.
Today, the John Wesley Methodist Episcopal Church attracts local and regional attention because of its unique history in Talbot County. It was an abolitionist and integrated church community in a county which was slave-holding since 1770. Talbot County was at the center of both legal manumission (the freeing of a slave) and Fugitive Slave Act enforcement. The African American community was 50% free and 50% enslaved. And it was the center of Union recruitment of slaves for the U.S. Colored Troops.
