Most of the Georgetown steamboat captains, especially the Poes, were members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Georgetown, PA. 

The Story of Methodism in the Pittsburgh Region pub 1958 (Anna L and John F Nash Colleciton).

The origin of Methodism in the Pittsburgh region was a story of  evangelic expansion from Baltimore to Uniontown to Washington to Pittsburgh.  In Pennsylvania, the original circuit known as the Redstone Circuit closely followed the National Highway (US Route 40).  The first Methodist church in Pittsburgh was Fort Pitt.  The bastion of Ft Pitt, erected in 1759, had been ordered abandoned in 1772.  It was sold to private interests and dismantled for its valuable bricks which were reused to build early homes in Pittsburgh.  By the 1790’s virtually nothing remained at “The Point”.  Peter Shiras bought the remains and offered the use of a large room at old Ft Pitt as a meeting place for the Methodists where  John Wrenshall established the first permanent Methodist community in Jul 1796.  That can only mean that the blockhouse we see at the forks of the Ohio was the first Methodist meeting house in Pittsburgh.  Peter Siras sold the remains of the old fort to Col James O’Hara in 1802.  In 1803 the Methodist Society had to give up the preaching place at “The Point”.

Tags: georgetown, methodist episcopal church, steamboat

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