Minutes of Several Conversations between Coke and Asbury

Minutes of Several Conversations Between the Rev. Thomas Coke, LL.D. The Rev. Francis Asbury and Others: At a Conference, Begun in Baltimore, in the State of Maryland, on Monday, the 27th. of December, in the Year 1784. Philadelphia: Printed by Charles Cist, 1785. (Theol. Fiche LTCH X544)

In 1784 John Wesley sent Thomas Coke, Richard Whatcoat, and Thomas Vasey to the United States with special instructions to “set apart some persons for the work of the ministry in America.” When the three Englishmen and approximately sixty American preachers convened that December in Baltimore, they organized the Methodist Episcopal Church as an independent Wesleyan denomination. This publication recorded the deliberations of the founding “Christmas Conference” and served as the constitution of the new religious body.