1878 AARON HUNT. Rare MSs Sermons of Pastor of "Colored" Methodist Episcopal Church in New York

Very attractive and important volume of 166pp manuscript sermons and sermon extracts and illustrations by an important New York Methodist divine, Rev. Aaron Hunt [1820-1908].  Our Aaron Hunt was the son of another Aaron Hunt, friend of Francis Asbury and pioneer of Methodism in New York.  Our Hunt, born in 1820, pastored multiple Methodist churches in New York before taking the historically important charge of St. John's Methodist Episcopal Church - "Colored" Congregation in Hudson New York. Only the second black church in the region, it originated in a secession of congregants from the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church of Hudson in 1872. Initially calling themselves the "Friends of Religious Liberty," it seems that there was a theological dispute, though we cannot trace the issue of contention between the two congregations. Needless to say, they form two of the early black churches in New York. In 1872, black citizens were not recorded in public documents, making artifacts such