St. Thomas AME Zion Church (1858) Somerville, NJ

“Beacon on the Hill, founded in 1858, now St. Thomas A.M.E. Zion Church was build and organized by the then pastor Rev. Benjamin Franklin Wheeler (1854-1909) & wife Sis. Amelia G. Wheeler.  Rev. Benjamin Franklin Wheeler, an instrumental figure in the start of the St. Thomas A.M.E. Zion denomination, in particular in Somerville & Flemington, inspiring a growing flock of worshippers to join the denomination started by his great uncle, James Varick, in 1796 in New York City.

While in The borough of Somerville Rev. Wheeler served as pastor of the A.M.E. Zion Church in Somerville and Flemington.  After graduating from Lincoln University in 1885 Wheeler entering the Theological Department at Lincoln University before attending Drew Theological Seminary where he graduated in 1899.  he was assigned the smallest charge in the conference and was sent to the Somerville circuit which consisted of Somerville and Flemington.  A dedicated pastor, when he was assigned to New Jersey in 1888, he would walk 16 miles to preach at both churches each Sunday.  He was instrumental in establishing the area churches after doubling the church size and helping to construct an actual house of worship for Somerville, which had an African American population of 14 founding members and grow to 350 but no church.

Rev. Wheeler was so dedicated to the cause that he refused the pastors stipend in order to make sure the church could save money to construct a church in Somerville.  When he left Somerville it was the jewel of the A.M.E. Zion conference. Once again an itinerant preacher who served at the will of the bishop, left New Jersey in 1893 for New York where he took on other missions, including one to ensure that the Auburn, New Jersey., home of Underground Railroad activist Harriet Tubman was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Rev. Wheeler and his wife Sis. Amelia G. Wheeler, burial site are at Somerville Cemetery (black section) in row 1, grave 1.  Rev. Wheelers, grave is one of 17,000 in the cemetery, established as a grave site in 1867.  It is the resting place for other notable historical figures such as Mary Gaston, the first female in New Jersey to receive a medical degree, and dozens of African-American people who formed the boroughs cultural legacy.  This now closing the loop of where Rev. Wheeler is buried because no one new where his grave site was, and helps headquarters office of the A.M.E. Zion Church in Charlotte, N.C., which had no records of where

Rev. Wheeler had been laid to rest.

SOURCE/EDITED: LAWRENCE E. WALKER FOUNDATION, 2006