Credit: Courtesy of the Library Company of Philadelphia
After purchasing the lot on which the Mother Bethel church now stands, Richard Allen had a blacksmith's shop, seen in this William Birch engraving from 1799, moved to the property with a team of his own horses. It would be the first of four buildings to house Bethel Church. In the background is Philadelphia's Walnut Street Jail, the nation's first "penitentiary."
