Methodist churches were a source of inspiration for a budding African-American community as people moved westward along the Baltimore and Frederick-Town Turnpike, part of the National Road system. In the early 1800s, both enslaved and free African-Americans first worshipped in white churches, where they were forced into balconies away from white congregations, and they ultimately sought to create a unifying community of strength by building their own churches. Simpson Poplar Springs, called the "Mother Church," served a widespread community and was developed on a farm donated to black sharecroppers in 1893; the one-room church served a dozen or so parishioners, most of whom lived in Shaffersville, a small black neighborhood now part of nearby Mt. Airy. Mount Gregory United Methodist Church began its services in 1898 in the lower level of the Warfield Academy, an old stone building deeded for the sole purpose of educating black children in nearby Cooksville on the National Road and part of a movement to educate African-American children after the Civil War. The congregation remained there while waiting for a new church to be built, and the current structure was built in 1927 after the original church built in 1922. Outreach and leadership efforts continued to grow as many became leaders of African-American associations and clubs, while the United Methodist Women, once called the Ladies Aid Society, and the United Methodist Men provided labor funds and upkeep and filled a critical void in post-Civil War black society by offering reading programs, aid to the disabled, and meals to those in need. Reverend Robert H. Robinson, pastor of 19 Methodist churches, many of them along the National Road from Baltimore to Cumberland, demonstrated the role of Methodist itinerant pastors in meeting the needs of a dispersed flock, and the creation of African-American United Methodist churches as separate from their white brethren was largely due to his dedication and leadership at the first United Methodist Colored Convention in 1861 in Washington, D.C.