Barbara Heck

Barbara Heck (1734, Ballingrane, County Limerick, Ireland – 17 August 1804, Augusta, Ontario) was an early American Methodist, known as the "mother of American Methodism."

Biography Heck was a member of a colony of Germans who came from the Rhine Palatinate and settled in Ballingrane, County Limerick and other parts of the west County Limerick about 1708. She married Paul Heck, a member of the same community. By the preaching of John Wesley many of these Germans, whose descendants were later known as Palatines in Ireland, became converts to Methodism.

The Hecks emigrated from Ireland in about 1760, and settled in New York, where other Methodists from Ireland became domiciled about the same time. They had no pastor and grew careless of religious observances. In 1765, they were joined by Philip Embury, who had been a local preacher in Ireland, and another group of immigrants from Ireland which included her brother Paul Ruckle. Soon after their arrival, Mrs. Heck entered a room in which, according to some accounts, Embury was present, and found the emigrants gambling at cards. She seized the cards and threw them into the fire, expostulated with the players in pathetic language, and then went to Embury and charged him that he should preach to them, or God would require their blood at his hands. Eventually, the revival included a large number, of mostly Irish immigrants and a number of African Americans. The Methodist society quickly outgrew Embury's home, moving first to a hired upper room on Barrack Street and then to a rigging loft on Horse and Cart Street (now William Street) in 1767. A number of Methodist denominations, such as the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection and Immanuel Missionary Church, continue to oppose the use of playing cards as being sinful, due to their association with idle friviolty and gambling.