William P. Quinn was the fourth bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and was one of the most energetic and longest-serving bishop out of all the other individuals.
He was born on April 10th, 1788 in Calcutta, India. He was 20 years old when he immigrated to the U.S and settled in Bulks Country, Pennsylvania. After being reciprocated by the black Methodist preachers in 1808, he became more progressive in the church. In 1812, Quinn got his license to preach and attended at the conception of the AME Church in Philadelphia in 1816. Quinn was made a deacon in the A.M.E church and began his ministry at petite communities in New Jersey: Bushtown, Gouldtown, Salem and Springton in 1818. When he returned to Bucks Country in 1828, he had an argument/altercation with Richard Allen that was so colossal that he withdrew from the denomination.
Soon enough, he changed his mind and petitioned to return in June 1828, but was not officially back until 1833. At the time, he was the first AME itinerant pastor working west of the Allegheny Mountains. In 1838, He became instrumental in the formation of the denomination’s Western Conference, the year in which he was ordained an elder and was assigned to go to the Pittsburgh-Philadelphia District located in the Columbia Circuit. Quin was appointed to a circuit located in Illinois in the Indiana Conference that was newly formed in 1840.
Quinn’s organizational skills and energy had a colossal amount of demand. He accepted a position as the assistant to the great AME Bishop Morris Brown in 1844. He became responsible for overseeing expansion in the western regions. His success was so highly tremendous that he was designated Saint Paul of the AME church. He helped initiate 72 new congregations and 47 churches which was a highly advanced arrangement between 1841 and 1844. His communique of his activities made the delegates in the AME General Conference so highly impressed that they elected him to the denomination’s Fourth Bishop in 1844. Quinn went on to take the arduous responsibility of the AME organizational operations in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan Kentucky, and Missouri. His work in Kentucky and Missouri included considerable risk because the recruitment by churches of slaves in those states was deemed a capital offense.
In a colossal attempt to improve the AME’s governing structure, Quinn proposed in a system that includes giving authority to a group of presiding elders. His plan was rejected at the time, but it was later adopted and became an integral part of the church’s operating structure. On May 9th, 1894, Morris Brown passed away at which time Quinn succeeded as the AME’s senior bishop. He retained the position for 25 years (way longer than his predecessors) until his death on February 2nd, 1873.
The story of William P Quinn shows how far you had to go to be on top.