5th Pastor
Henry J. Young
- Birth Date:
- Mother Bethel Pastor: 1852-1853; 1871-1873
- Death Date:
BACKGROUND: No birth, death, or family record has been established for Henry J. Young. Beyond his two pastorates at Mother Bethel, 1852–1853 (this entry) and 1871–1873, when he returned as the church’s twenty-first pastor. As of now no personal narrative has surfaced in the sources checked.
THEOLOGY: A minister identified as “H. J. Young” is recorded among the delegates to the AME Church’s Tenth General Conference, held in Cincinnati in May 1856, named among those favoring the majority report’s call to strengthen the Book of Discipline’s language on slavery toward immediate rather than gradual emancipation (C.S. Smith, supplemental History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church). Given the initials, denomination, and era, this is plausibly the same Henry J. Young who pastored Mother Bethel, though the source does not spell out his full first name — the identification should be treated as probable, not certain.
Achievements
- Served two separate terms as Mother Bethel’s pastor, nearly twenty years apart (1852–1853 and 1871–1873).
- If the 1856 General Conference identification above is correct, he was on record as a supporter of stronger anti-slavery language in the church’s Book of Discipline, five years before the Civil War.
For Further Research — Physical and Archival Leads
- Cross-check the 1856 Cincinnati General Conference delegate roll against Philadelphia Conference clergy lists to confirm the “H. J. Young” identification.
- Wright’s Centennial Encyclopaedia (full text not completely searchable with the tools used here) for a Young entry.
- Conference appointment records for 1852–1853 and 1871–1873.
SOURCES
Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church. “Our Pastoral History.” Accessed September 16, 2026. https://motherbethel.org/our-pastoral-history/.
Smith, Charles Spencer. A History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church: Being a Volume Supplemental to A History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, by Daniel Alexander Payne, Chronicling the Principal Events… from 1856 to 1922. Philadelphia: Book Concern of the A.M.E. Church, 1922.
