Richard Allen (Reverend)

Richard Allen (14 February 1760 - 26 March 1831) was born a slave of Benjamin Chew at Germantown, Pennsylvania (now a part of Philadelphia), but his family was soon sold to Stockley Sturgis whose plantation was near Dover, Delaware. He eventually (in 1785) bought his own freedom from Sturgis (for $2000 it had taken him five years to save up), and in 1816 he founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and was elected its first bishop.