This manuscript volume documents the early activities of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New Orleans, Louisiana. It includes membership records and administrative reports. The membership records identify 634 black members (1836-1838) and 242 white members (1825-1838). The administrative reports consist of quarterly conference meeting minutes for Wesley Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church (New Orleans, La.) dated 1844-1846. Located at the back of the volume is a section labeled “colored church” quarterly conference meeting minutes. This includes records for the following congregations: Gravier Street Methodist Episcopal Church (New Orleans, La.) from 1843-1859; Wesley Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church (New Orleans, La.) from 1844-1849, which includes an act of incorporation; and Soule Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church (New Orleans, La.) from 1849, which document a real estate transaction.

The following note appears in the volume: “Joseph Travis and Seymour B. Sawyer having been appointed to this station from the Alabama Conference. They arrived here on the 13th of January 1836 and after due inquiry for a church book containing the names of the members of the Methodist Episcopal Church: no such book was to be found. No, not even a class paper for the whites in the whole city. In the Faubourg and Lafayette Mission a class paper was found, but no church book. And the mission and the city station having this year been united by Bishop Soule: we have procured a book (as a church book) recording the names of such members as we can find both white and colored in both places.”