Background
Sarah Bass was born in 1764 in Isle of Wight County, Virginia as a slave.
Sarah Bass was born in 1764 in Isle of Wight County, Virginia as a slave.
She is known within the AME Church as The Founding Mother. When she was eight she was sent to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was no longer enslaved as of 1800.
That year she met Richard Allen.
They had six children: Richard Junior., James, John, Peter, Sara, and Annual Allen maintained the family finances and general homemaking tasks.
The family purchased property for $35 in Philadelphia. The property housed a blacksmith shop.
The shop was planning to relocate and the Allens used their team of horses to transport the shop to its new location.
Allen was highly involved in the AME Church, which Richard Allen founded. The family hid and cared for runaway slaves and their home was a part of the Underground Railroad. The couple used their home and the church to house enslaved people.
By 1827, she had founded the Daughters of the Conference.
The Daughters supported the male ministers of the AME Church. The women federal and cared for the generally poor and untidy ministers.
The women also had a sewing circle to help mend and make clothes for the ministers. She is buried alongside Richard Allen at Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
The Daughters of the Conference was renamed Sarah Allen Women"s Missionary Society.