Abyssinian Meeting House is a historic church building at 73-75 Newbury Street, Portland, Maine. It is considered to be Maine’s oldest African American church building. The Abyssinian Meeting House was built in 1828 as a place of worship for African Americans in the city of Portland. The church was founded when worshippers Christopher Christian Manuel, Reuben Ruby, Caleb Jonson, Clement Thomson, Job L. Wentworth, and John Siggs published a letter in the Eastern Argus newspaper on September 19, 1826. In the letter, they condemned the Second Congregational Church in Portland for treating nonwhite members as second-class citizens due to racism. They then petitioned the state of Maine for incorporation of the Abyssinian Religious Society which in turn later built the Abyssinian Meeting House.
The Reverend Amos Noe Freeman became the church’s first full-time minister, serving from 1841 to 1851. Freeman’s main focus while being a minister at the church was employment, temperance, and abolishing slavery. Freeman was known to be an abolitionist who worked with the Underground Railroad and used the building to host and organize anti-slavery speakers, Negro conventions, and testimonies from runaway slaves. Also, the church served as a segregated public school for Black children from 1846 to 1857. Freeman served as the Principal of the school. At its height, the school had 50 students but it closed in 1857 because of declining enrollment. The church, however, survived the 1866 Great Fire of Portland, Maine, through the efforts of William Wilberforce Ruby, a Black fireman and son of Reuben Ruby. He protected the building by draping the roof in wet blankets.
By the late 19th century, the Abyssinian Meeting House started to decline in size due in part to the growing number of Black churches getting established in the city. On February 24, 1917, an act of the Maine Legislature dissolved and sold the church. Most church members became members of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (Now Green Memorial A.M.E. Zion Church) located on Sheridan Street in Portland, Maine. After the sale, the Abyssinian Meeting House was used as a stable and antique store, then developed into tenement apartments in 1924.
In 1991, the Abyssinian Meeting House was seized by the City of Portland for unpaid taxes. It was then bought for historic preservation by the Committee to Restore the Abyssinian in 1998. The Committee purchased the building from the City of Portland for $250. In 2006, the Abyssinian Meeting House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places and the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. In September 2012, Greater Portland Landmarks named the Abyssinian Meeting House one of seven historic sites in peril due to lack of restoration funding. As a result in 2021 a $375,000 grant was provided by the State of Maine for the building’s restoration.
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“Abyssinian Meeting House,” National Register of Historic Places Continuation Sheet,file:///C:/Users/smomo/OneDrive/Documents/Black%20Churches/05001612_text.pdf; “Abyssinian Meeting House,” Greater Portland Landmarks, https://www.portlandlandmarks.org/abyssinian-meeting-house; “Abyssinian Meeting House,” The Abyssinian Meeting House, https://www.abyssinianmeetinghouse.org/.
Portland’s Abyssinian Meeting House, https://youtu.be/vrqlZJCBCwg?si=pQTxYJNINeQhqu95
$1.7 million in federal funds to restore Maine’s oldest Black church building, https://youtu.be/ii5ygwn-VXQ?si=135FX3Ea4vfpRSLh
