Methodist churches became a source of inspiration for a growing African-American community moving 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 apart from white congregations, and they ultimately sought unity and strength by building their own churches. Simpson Poplar Springs, known as the "Mother Church," served a widespread community and was established on a farm donated to black sharecroppers in 1893; the one-room church served about a dozen parishioners, most of them from Shaffersville, a small black neighborhood now part of nearby Mt. Airy. Mount Gregory United Methodist Church began services in 1898 in the lower level of the Warfield Academy, an old stone building deeded to educate black children in nearby Cooksville on the National Road as part of a movement to educate African-American children after the Civil War. The congregation remained there while awaiting a new church, and the current structure was built in 1927 after the original church burned in 1922. Outreach and leadership continued to expand as many members became leaders in African-American associations and clubs, while the United Methodist Women, once called the Ladies Aid Society, and the United Methodist Men provided labor, upkeep funds, reading programs, aid to the disabled, and meals for those in need, filling a critical void in post Civil War black society. Reverend Robert H. Robinson, pastor of 19 Methodist churches, many along the National Road from Baltimore to Cumberland, exemplified the role of itinerant pastors serving dispersed congregations, and his dedication and leadership at the first United Methodist Colored Convention in Washington, D.C., in 1861 helped make possible the creation of separate African-American United Methodist churches that could support newly developing communities.