Leaning On The Land

The harsh Kansas prairie deepened the faith of the Nicodemus AME (African Methodist Episcopal) congregation. Rev. Jerry Meyers and five others organized the church in 1879, and members first met in dugouts and then in the First Baptist Church. A community leader, Rev. Meyers also led the organization of the first school. In 1885, Rev. Charles H. Brown and the forty-member congregation raised funds for their own wood-frame building, St. Paul's AME Church. Fire destroyed the original church building in 1896, but the congregation persevered and in 1910 purchased the Mt. Pleasant Baptist's building at this location. They added the front foyer at that time, and the date "1885" was set over the door to commemorate Rev. Brown and the congregation's first church structure. Rev. Joe Wilson served as pastor here in the 1950s and also pastored at First Baptist Church after the AME Church closed. As Nicodemus' population declined, so did the AME congregation, and after the 1960s members worshiped with the First Baptist Church a block northwest of here.

Nicodemus, Kansas · United States