The inspiration for founding St. George's AME Church in Lewes, Delaware, stemmed from relationships formed when Richard Allen, Founder of the AME Church, was hauling salt along the water route from Rehoboth to Dover. While pursuing this enterprise, Allen developed relationships with some of the influential African Americans living along the canal. Richard Allen took time during his business trips to hold prayer meetings in the old Bethel Meeting House on Mulberry Street in Lewes. Francis Asbury and other prominent Methodists, both black and white, met at Bethel. The members of the Lewes community also used the meeting house for occasional meetings that addressed social concerns, and his fellowship organized St. George's AME Church, which became the hub of the African Americans.
Bishop Allen was one of America’s first black leaders who gained prominence for standing up against racial discrimination. He joined the Methodist church when he was seventeen years old. He was able to purchase his freedom after the conversion of his slave owner. In 1787, Richard Allen, Absalom Jones, and other protesters protested after being pulled from their knees while praying at the altar of St. George's Methodist Church (a white congregation). This racially segregated seating practice impelled them to walk out of St. George’s. In 1816, Allen founded Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia, PA. The African Methodist Episcopal Church now comprises seventeen Episcopal districts worldwide.
A corn crib on the canal side of the Pilot Town Bank Road was given to Allen’s followers as a meeting place by Mrs. Lisa Ann Marshall. This act of generosity encouraged the group. On February 23, 1861, Peter Lewes, a black man who owned and operated a shipbuilding business, donated land on Pilot Town Bank Road as a church site. The corn crib was relocated and remodeled into a flat-top building, which was then used as a house of worship. The congregation grew.
The original church edifice was destroyed in 1833. It was rebuilt at the exact location. On May 13, 1891, an adjoining plot of land was purchased by the siblings of Harrison Smith. This land was used as a cemetery owned by St. George's AME Church. St. George's AME Church was incorporated on June 19, 1899, with a membership of forty-two people. The cemetery is easily identifiable today; however, the church that once stood on that site is no longer there. There are at least five Buffalo Soldiers buried there, along with other people who were instrumental in St. George’s growth and longevity.
A parsonage was built on New Road in 1900. The land on Park Avenue in Lewes, Delaware, where the church is currently located, was provided by Isaac Burton in 1922. This gift was the expressed will of his aunt, Charlotte Burton. On a beautiful Sunday afternoon in June of 1932, the pastor and the congregation marched from Pilot Town to the new St. George's AME Church on Park Avenue. Twelve years later, on November 4, 1945, the mortgage was burned.
A modular home was erected adjacent to the Park Avenue Church in 1973. St. George continues to be a beacon in the community. This once-vibrant church has seen a change in membership numbers due to the gentrification of the community. However, we are still “strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.”