Richard Allen (Reverend)
Richard Allen (
14 February 1760 -
26 March 1831) was born a slave of
Benjamin Chew at
Germantown, Pennsylvania (now a part of
Philadelphia), but his family was soon sold to Stockley Sturgis whose plantation was near
Dover, Delaware. He eventually (in
1785) bought his own freedom from Sturgis (for $2000 it had taken him five years to save up), and in
1816 he founded the
African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and was elected its first bishop.