Originally built in 1853 for Portsmouth, Ohio’s German Methodist Society, and known as Spencer Chapel, this house of worship was re-christened Allen Chapel in 1868 when it became the home of the city’s African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. In September 1905, Allen Chapel hosted a meeting of the Ohio Conference of the AME, which Bishop, W. B. Derrick of New York City serving as the presiding minister. During the Conference, Bishop Derrick was denied service at the Wurster Brothers Drug Store on Chillicothe Street, where the owners operated a whites-only soda fountain. The Conference responded by adopting resolutions condemning the practice of Jim Crow in the City of Portsmouth: "We resent the un-called-for, un-christian and inhuman treatment, and hurl back its odium into the faces of our traducers. .... We pray that God will hasten the time when our people, as other races, may be judged upon their individual merits, and the distinctions of condition and work may be recognized."