St. John Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, DC

Our History

About the year 1867, the pioneers of this community joined with those in Howard Town (Nichols Avenue area) and trekked to Good Hope, now known as Garfield and worshiped with Allen AME Church. They traveled by horse and buggy; old wagons; horseback and on foot through the woods over the ditches and rugged roads to work out their soul salvation. As time moved on many of the worshipers, being old and not too well, felt the distance to and from had become strenuous and decided to seek a closer meeting place. An old schoolhouse on Mt. Zion Hill known as Douglas Road, S.E. was made available. Later the Howard Town folk sought a closer place and began worshiping in the home of one of its members, thereafter building what is now known as Campbell AME Church, Nichols Avenue (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue) and Sumner Road, S.E. By that time the CME Church had come into existence. Those remaining at Mt. Zion continued to worship there until 1875, when they built a church at the corner of Stanton and Douglas Roads, S.E. and named it Israel Mission CME Church, later changed to Hillsdale Station CME and in 1920 changed to St. John CME Church.