Philip Embury

Philip Embury (21 September 1729 – August 1775) was a Methodist preacher, a leader of one of the earliest Methodist congregations in the United States.

Biography Philip Embury was born in Ballygaran, County Limerick, on 21 September 1729. His parents were members of the colony of Germans that emigrated from the Palatinate to Ireland early in the eighteenth century, and in which John Wesley labored with great success. The colony had formed from Protestant Germans forced to abandon their farms on the Rhine due to French Catholic raids and a harsh winter. In 1709, Queen Anne of England accepted the refugees, settling a group of families in Catholic Ireland to boost the Protestant presence. Embury was educated at a school near Ballingrane, County Limerick, and learned the carpenter's trade. He was converted on Christmas day, 1752, became a local preacher at Court-Matrix in 1758, and married Margaret Switzer that fall.

In 1760, due to rising rents and scarce land, he came to New York City and worked as a school teacher. at Camden Valley, New York, where he continued to work at his trade during the week, and preached every Sunday. He and several others had received a grant of to develop for the manufacture of linen. and was buried on a neighboring farm. In 1832, his remains were removed to Ashgrove churchyard, and in 1866 to Woodland Cemetery, Cambridge, New York, where in 1873 a monument to him was unveiled, with an address by Bishop Matthew Simpson.