Belleville entered the 1800s with only three churches: Dutch Reformed, Episcopal, and Methodist. The nineteenth century was a time for the organization of new churches as the town's population changed and increased. In 1880 Belleville's black citizens organized the Little Zion African Methodist Episcopal Church, now located on Stephens Street.

Presbyterians in the Soho section laid the cornerstone for their Montgomery Chapel in 1895. What is today's Montgomery Presbyterian Church on Mill Street began as a Sunday school set up in 1826 for Soho quarry workers. The church opened in 1896 and came under the support of a Presbyterian church in nearby Bloomfield until it became independent in 1922.

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