Founded in 1821, the first Bethel African Methodist Episcopal ( A.M.E.) Church in Reading was a log cabin at Franklin and Apple Streets. The church location changed after seven members (Samuel Murray, George Dillon, George Santee, Enoch Sanders, Jacob Ross, Isaac Parker, and William Clark) bought property at 119 North 10th Street in 1836. The congregation grew so large that in 1867, an even larger building was built there (“ Bethel A.M.E. Church ”).

Churches in the 1800s were sacred ground, and slave hunters would not search for runaways there, making them ideal hiding places. Frank Gilyard reports that at the A.M.E. Church, which is now the home of the Central Pennsylvania African American Museum, the pit where runaway slaves would hide still exists. Under one of the windows at the front of the church is a trapdoor under which is a crawl space that can fit twenty people.

Bethel A.M.E. Church was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979 and was renovated and restored in 1984. Since 1998, the church has acted as a museum, housing artifacts collected by Mr. Gilyard, museum trustee, and others. One such artifact is a slave collar recovered from the Parvin Homestead on Snyder Road in Ontelaunee Township, which is believed to have been another stop on the Underground Railroad.

https://sites.psu.edu/localhistories/woven-with-words/the-underground-railroad-in-the-19th-century/

One of those most interesting and beloved 19th Century African-American figures of Bethel Reading’s community was Dinah Clark. Born to slave parents in Bern Township

in 1794, Clark earned her freedom at aged 21 under the provisions of Pennsylvania’s Gradual Emancipation Law. She spent her early years as an indentured servant, bought and sold by many masters. Before she earned her freedom, Clark was a member was a slave of Mr. Joseph Heister and was known to cut more wood in a day than the average man could. At a youth service which took place in 1836, Clark told the youth of the church that Bethel assisted the fugitives by feeding, clothing and hiding them in a space, commonly known as the pit, located beneath the lower basement. Clark’s husband William was also listed in the Bethel Reading Church’s Baptismal record of 1836. Morgan, one of their daughters, was also listed as baptized in the same year. According to Bethel’s records of 1836, William Clark was an active church member and was buried in a grave located in the back yard of the Old Bethel AME Church (CPAAM). The AME Church records continue to be a resource for tracking African American family histories.

Gilyard often referred to a slave case that was tried in Old Court House at 5th and Penn Streets. The defendant, a married man named Turner, was a member of Bethel AME Church, Reading, PA. His alleged owner was not able to take him to Maryland. According to an August 1, 1932 Reading Eagle article, the trial was held on February 19, 1840. Mr. Jacob Ross, the church sexton, testified that the defendant had been a member of Bethel for six years. Ross, the Church’s most colorful figure as a hulking, sixfoot tall wood sawyer was known as a “shouting Methodist,” whose emphatic “Amens!” rung out during church services. Born a slave in Virginia, he escaped to Pennsylvania sometime around 1800. Ross was a man who risked capture to save another (CPAAM). It is said that the court case was one of the most important cases held in that old structure. Gilyard said that after Turner escaped successfully to Canada, he wrote a letter to Bethel Reading to report arriving safely. Indeed the Underground Railroad was very active in Berks County.

https://www.racc.edu/sites/default/files/imported/StudentLife/Clubs/Legacy/pdf/LegacyXII.pdf