This is the Presbyterian Church in downtown Washington NC as it appears in a sketch in the mid 1800's.

This Church is significant to local African American history as old stories were told in the Black community for decades that the Emancipation Proclamation was read in front of the Church in January 1863.
A letter written by Martha Matilda Fowle (Wiswall) who lived in Washington attested by a February 28, 1863, entry her journal, (Journal of Martha M. Fowle, Written During the Civil War November 1, 1862-December 13, 1863) may prove this account accurate.

She wrote in her journal, that "my letters from Washington show a sad state of affairs there. Our church was used as a place to read the Proclamation to the Negroes, and they were told they were equal to whites and must be treated equal."
(The 'our church" comment may refer to the fact her father Samuel R. Fowle was one of the founders of the church and her family attended the church.)

This account gives credence to the story told by local African American ancestors that the Emancipation Proclamation was read in front of this church. It helps to keep in mind that this church was located two blocks from the historic port of Washington. Along this location on the Pamlico River were several sizeable plantations, Elmwood, Bonner and Cedar Grove.

This church for many years had a slave gallery were enslaved people attended service here.

Martha Fowle's father, Samuel R. Fowle a powerful and wealthy merchant was one of the founders of the Church in 1822. He was one of the first Elder's ordained in the Church in 1823. (It is also interesting that Samuel Fowle owned enslaved people.)

The Presbyterian Church in the U. S. were known for their aid to some freedom rights movements.
Here was one of their creeds regarding Presbyterian Resistance to Slavery Presbyterians are Anglo-Saxon American settlers who lived by the religious creed:
“You shall not hand over to his master a slave who has escaped from his master to you,” (Deuteronomy 23:15)

After years of pressure from Quaker and Presbyterian abolitionists, in 1807 the U.S. Congress outlawed importation of African slaves. Even though the African slave trade ended in 1807, the U.S continued its internal slave trade.

While slavery drove America into unrivalled prosperity, the Presbyterian Church followed through with its moral imperative of resistance. Presbyterian church leaders forbade its members to own slaves. (Though many of them continued to own enslaved people.)

However, Presbyterian ministers such as John Rankin assisted slaves to freedom via the underground railroad. Finally in 1863 after the North won the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation ended slavery within the United States. From its inception, the Presbyterian Church has been an instrumental agent of change against the evil of human bondage in America.

Source: Washington Waterfront Underground Railroad Museum