Timeline created by the AU Working Group on the Influence of Slavery in August 2018. It is organized into five categories:;xNLx;Bishop John Fletcher Hurst focuses on the founder of American University's personal life.;xNLx;;xNLx;American University history depicts milestones in the founding of the university, as well as the history and ownership of the site of the University before its founding.;xNLx;;xNLx;Local events contextualizes relevant events in Maryland and the District of Columbia in tandem with events in the Hurst and American University categories.;xNLx;;xNLx;National events contextualizes relevant national events in tandem with events in the Hurst and American University categories.;xNLx;;xNLx;Methodist Church category contextualizes relevant events of the Church's history in tandem with events in the Hurst and American University categories.
African slavery in the future United States begins with the arrival of around 20 African slaves in Jamestown, Virginia colony.
Maryland legalizes slavery with "an Act Concerning Negroes & other Slaues" [sic] during the Maryland General Assembly in 1663-1664.
Piscataway Indians inhabit the Potomac Valley, including the Tenleytown area, historically through the 1690s.
In 1713, the “Friendship tract” is granted by Charles Calvert to Colonel Thomas Addison and James A. Stoddert, the southern part of which becomes the site of American University.
John Murdock, who’s relatives married into the Addison family and inherited the land, builds Friendship house (current site of the President’s house), the first substantive country manor in the area. Murdock inherited from Anthony Addison who at the time of his death had “20 Negroes” who would have worked the tobacco farm; however, it is not clear if anyone was living on the property itself aside from treating the home as a “country house”. Historically this land was owned by slave owning families and had their slaves working the land.
The Wesleyan Methodist movement introduced to North America in 1766 by Irish immigrants near Strawbridge, Maryland.
The 13 colonies declare independence from Great Britain and engage in the American Revolutionary War as the United States of America.
1784 Book of Discipline gives two options to slave-owning Methodists: free their slaves or leave the church.
At Christmas Conference at Lovely Lane Church in Baltimore, Maryland, the Methodist Episcopal Church (ME Church) is founded. Francis Asbury named first Bishop.
The Rule of the 1784 Discipline is suspended for a time for “practical” reasons, with the caveat: “We do hold in the deepest abhorrence the practice of Slavery, and shall not cease to seek its destruction, by all wise and prudent means.”
The U.S. Constitution is ratified and included the Three-Fifths Compromise, found in Article 1, Section 2, which counted slaves as three-fifths of a person.
George Washington is inaugurated as the first President of the United States.
The Maryland Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery and the Relief of Free Negroes and Others Unlawfully Held in Bondage is founded.
Congress establishes the federal district on lands previously ceded by Maryland and Virginia. The capital is officially named the District of Columbia in 1796, and the government moved to the District of Columbia from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 1, 1800.
The Methodist Episcopal Church adopts the Rule: “No slaveholder shall be received into society till the preacher who has the oversight of the Circuit, has spoken to him freely and faithfully upon the subject of slavery.”
An additional Rule: “When any travelling preacher becomes an owner of a slave, or slaves, by any means, he shall forfeit his ministerial character in our church, unless he executes, if it be practicable, a legal emancipation of such slaves, conformably to the laws of the State in which he lives.”
Congress extends the Virginia and Maryland slavery laws into the District of Columbia.
General Rules softened with the effect of permitting slaveholding (especially in the South). In subsequent years, southern ministers would declare the General Rule against slaveholding “a dead letter” in the South.
John Fletcher Hurst is born at “Weir Neck," the family farm in Salem, Dorcester County, Maryland to Elijah and Ann Catherine (Colston). The Hurst family historically owned slaves to run their mid-Atlantic Maryland farms. Federal census records and chattel records indicate Elijah Hurst (and wives) were active slave-holders.
The 1830’s begin to see the rifts emerging in American Methodism as Northern conferences push for anti-slavery and abolition and Southern conferences seek to preserve the status quo. The Baltimore Annual Conference adopts a statement in favor of “peaceable, gradual emancipation” rejecting radical abolition.
The fraught political environment leads the bishops to instruct the clergy not to engage in abolition work, a move resisted by a number of the Northern conferences, who attempt to issue statements condemning the Baltimore Conference resolution.
The Georgia Annual Conference declares that slavery is not a “moral evil” and is a civil institution about which “ministers of Christ” have nothing to do. The move is condemned in the North and followed by other conferences in the South.
Ann Catherine (Colston) Hurst, Hurst’s mother, dies after long bout of asthma.
A breaking point is reached: General Conference votes to censure a bishop for ownership of slaves. Southern conferences express displeasure with censure. Plan for separation introduced. Southern Churches break away to form Methodist Episcopal Church, South.
Elijah Hurst, Hurst’s father, marries Emily L. Travers.
Alexandria County, D.C. retroceded to Virginia.
Hurst’s father Elijah dies, bequeathing one or two slaves to him at age 15, as well as "Weir Neck" farm. Between 1848-1850, Hurst was attending Cambridge Academy and boarding with the family of Captain Shadrach Mitchell in Cambridge, Maryland.
Hurst begins college at Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA at age 16.
As a freshman in college, Hurst argues for abolition as part of the Union Philosophical Society, prevailing in the debate.
Hurst graduates from Dickinson a month before turning 20.
Hurst travels to Germany to begin theological studies at Halle in Germany.
Hurst returns home, resolving on the way, to enter the Methodist ministry. Upon returning home, Hurst becomes a circuit preacher in the East Baltimore Conference.
Hurst is appointed to a pastorate at Irvington, New Jersey. (Age 24)
Authorized the manumission of Tom King, a slave he’d inherited from his father, to take effect in 1862 when Tom turns 21.
Hurst writes in his diary: “12. — (New York) Tract Society Anniversary. Speeches by Dr. Kirk, Missionary Vrooman, and Henry Ward Beecher. The last was a great one and well done. It was a rebuke to the American Tract Society on slavery issues. He far surpasses Spurgeon in several characteristics of greatness. Without indorsing his antislavery ultraism, I admire his boldness and steadfastness of purpose. He preaches with an aim.
Hurst is ordained a deacon by Bishop Levi Scott; and is reappointed to his post in Passaic, New Jersey.
Maryland outlaws manumission through will and deeds
The Civil War begins at Fort Sumter in South Carolina.
Fort Gaines is established in Tenleytown (on future American University grounds) owned by William D.C. Murdock (only son of Addison Murdock and great-grandson of Colonel John Murdock).
Slavery is abolished in Washington, D.C.
Hurst ordained an Elder by Bishop Thomas A. Morris.
William D.C. Murdock, land owner of “Friendship” in 1862, frees his 9 slaves, believed to be living in Georgetown, unclear if Murdock’s slaves would have been working on Friendship property at the time.
Nancy W. Davis, sister and housemate to future “Friendship” landowners James L. Davis and Achsah C. Davis, frees her four slaves.
President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation take effect, which frees all slaves in the territories currently in rebellion.
Hurst writes in his diary: “18. — On my knees I declare that in future I will be the black man’s friend, and if my previous course has seemed dubious may God forgive me. The riots in New York have disgusted me with conservatism.”
Sold Weir Neck farm left to him by his father.
Maryland abolishes slavery.
President Lincoln is assassinated and dies.
The Civil war ends
Fort Gaines is abandoned at the end of the Civil War.
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