Richard Allen (14 February 1760 - 26 March 1831) was born a slave of Benjamin Chew at Germantown, Pennsylvania (now a part of Philadelphia), but his family was soon sold to Stockley Sturgis whose plantation was near Dover, Delaware. He eventually (in 1785) bought his own freedom from Sturgis (for $2000 it had taken him five years to save up). Richard Allen and others were forced to leave St. George's Methodist Church, in 1787. In 1816 he founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia and was elected its first bishop.