1802. The corner stone of the building is dated 1763. The building was "a mere shell" when purchased with no paint, plaster, or interior finishing. It originally stood about two feet above the street and took several steps to enter. The construction of the interior developed slowly over the next several years, in 1784 the walls were plastered, and in 1790 the church was floored with more comfortable seats installed. The galleries were built in 1792. In 1800 a portico was built for the front door. In 1836 the shallow cellar was excavated to allow a vestibule and a room below for a Sunday School, the portico was removed and the center window above the front door was inserted. Francis Asbury and The First American Conference Francis Asbury, later one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, arrived in America on October 27, 1771 after a fifty-three-day ocean voyage from England and received at St. George's. Asbury wrote in his journal, "...we were brought in the evening to a large church, where we met a considerable congregation. Mr. Pilmore preached. The people looked on us with pleasure, hardly knowing how to show their love sufficiently, bidding us welcome with fervent affection, and receiving us as the angels of God." Asbury preached for the first time at St. George's the next day, his first American sermon out of approximately 16,500 that he preached over 270,000 miles of traveling back and forth across the colonies. He served St. George's as pastor but also spent a great deal of time traveling around the colonies. Asbury worked tirelessly to bring Methodism to the new American nation as one of its leading itinerant ministers, traveling 270,000 miles on horseback and ordaining more than 4,000 ministers over the course of 45 years. The first conference at which Asbury presided in Philadelphia was held at St. George's on September 22–26, 1788. In the spring of 1773 Thomas Rankin, who had been appointed by Methodist founder John Wesley as superintendent of the American Methodists, called the first American Methodist conference. Asbury and Rankin did not have a good relationship and at this conference Asbury was appointed to Baltimore. Maryland was an important bastion of Methodism at the time with 500 of its 1,600 members in that colony. Rankin then had a series of appointments to New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. American Revolution The outbreak of