William Cornish

BACKGROUND: Reverend William A. Cornish was born in Delaware and joined the Church at an early age, becoming one of the first recruits received by Bishop Richard Allen after the formation of the connection. He had a younger brother, John Cornish, also born in Delaware, who likewise became an AME minister and later served as pastor of Mother Bethel himself (1848–1852 and 1857–1858). Cornish took a superannuated relation in 1840 and remained in that status until the latter part of 1847, when he died. According to Bishop Alexander Wayman’s Cyclopaedia of African Methodism (1882), his last words to the many who came to see him were: “Happy! happy! happy!”

THEOLOGY: Following his admission into the Conference, Cornish distinguished himself as a preacher and debater of considerable strength, filling nearly all the denomination’s most prominent stations, including New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. In 1828, he was assigned to organize African Americans in New York’s Capital Region under the banner of African Methodism, founding the congregation now known as Israel AME Church, which continues to serve the Albany area today. He served as pastor of Mother Bethel from 1824 to 1825. In 1836, Cornish stood as a prominent candidate for the Episcopacy at the General Conference held in Philadelphia, though Edward Waters was elected in his place and became the denomination’s third bishop.