Reuben Ruby, Caleb Jonson, Clemant Tomson, Job J. Wentworth, Christopher C. Manuel and John Sigs decry the treatment of Black parishioners in Portland Churches. With 600 persons seeking houses of worship
. . .’provision for the accommodation of a very few of our people has been made in several houses of public worship; but while the provision is totally inadequate to our wants, the privilege granted us is associated with such circumstances, as are calculated to repel rather than invite our attendance. Nay pardon our misapprehensions if they are such, we have sometimes thought our attendance was not desired. The undersigned are persuaded that nothing would so much contribute to improve the character and raise the tone of moral feeling among their people, as the erection for their use of a suitable house for public worship, and regular ministration of the gospel. They cannot but consider the accomplishment of this object as intimately and vitally connected with the usefulness and happiness of their people. It is an object, the undersigned have much at heart, and to promote which they and their brethren are ready to appropriate a portion of their very limited means. And they hope they shall not be thought obtrusive in taking this method of inviting the attention, and soliciting the aid and encouragement of the well disposed.’