- Norman Grindley /Deputy Chief Photographer
Coke Methodist Church was once closed by the authorities because of the help its administrators gave to Jamaicans of African descent.
TOWERING ABOVE St. William Grant Park, Coke Methodist Church dominates the architecture of downtown Kingston.
Located at the corner of East Queen Street and Parade, the church rests on a site which was originally a merchant's home.
The residence was bought by the Methodists for £1,200. The merchant house was then remodelled and opened as a place of worship from 1790.
Coke Methodist Church was named after Dr. Thomas Coke, founder of the Methodist mission in the West Indies.
Hostility
In 1790, the building consisted of two storeys. The upper floor galleries on two sides were used for services. It could accommodate 1,600 persons. The lower floor was used as the residence of the minister and his family. There was also a basement called the band room which was used by the bands, for Sunday school and the meetings of small groups.
The chapel began at a time when there was open hostility towards missionary activity. Attempts were made to destroy the building and newspaper writers slanderously attacked the ministers. According to one writer, in 1807 a grand jury in Kingston found the chapel "injurious to the general peace of the town" and ordered it closed.
The church remained closed for seven years, but when it was reopened in 1814 the membership had increased from 600 to 1700.
The increase in membership was credited to one Mary Wilkinson, a Methodist from Manchioneal, Portland who fled the authorities there after going around encouraging slaves to get married. She would perform the ceremony herself without a license when there was no minister available to do the deed.
Closed
Arriving in Kingston, Wilkinson found Coke Methodist Church closed by the authorities. She started going around to nearby communities, personally evangelising night and day.
Mary Wilkinson collected the names of those whom she discipled and was able to present to the minister of Coke Methodist, when it reopened, with a list of 1,100 names of individuals who wanted to be members.
The membership continued to grow, necessitating the construction of a larger building. In 1840, a larger structure was completed on the same site. This church was severely damaged in the 1907 earthquake and the present building dates from that time. It was rebuilt in the neo-gothic style of the original church with some changes to its design.
A minister of the church has put on record the discovery of an underground tunnel beneath the church which is alleged to have been used by slaves as a means of entering the building for worship.
The authorities are said to have ambushed a group on one occasion, killing them on the spot. Up until the late 1970s, blood-stained walls in this tunnel were attributed to this tale.
Later, the church authorities filled this tunnel with concrete to strengthen the foundation of the building. Coke Methodist Church was declared a national monument on January 2, 2002.
- Outlook Team. Source: Ja Nat'l Heritage Trust Files.
