The Wesley Methodist Church which now stands on Washington Avenue is the oldest Methodist church in all of Essex County. Organized in 1791 through the efforts of two women, Miss Margaret Dow and Miss Mary Ann Stewart, the congregation met in their homes for worship. The first church building went up on Main Street just south of Belleville Avenue in 1803.

Wesley Methodist Church's birth in 1791 came in the same year that John Wesley, the English founder of Methodism, died in England. The 1803 church was replaced by a Academy Street went up in 1900. In its nearly two hundred years of existence over one hundred ministers served Wesley Methodist Church.

Source: Belleville: 150th-Anniversary Historical Highlights 1839-1989 by Robert B. Burnett and the Belleville 150th-Anniversary Committee Belleville, New Jersey. 1991.