He helped "the Church-minded people in Newport" to organize their new congregation and the vestry considered him to be St. Paul's founder.

In the front of the Methodist Church interior of the building there was a low gallery, without handrails, for the use of slaves, who came to meetings with their masters.

Although the congregation continued to grow (by 1894 it was the largest parish in the Diocese), the vestry struggled with debt well into the twentieth century.

The church and its people have weathered natural disasters of every magnitude, including an earthquake in 1880, the record-breaking Ohio River floods of 1884 and 1937, and the tornadoes of 1915 and 1986.

Here worshipped Gen. James Taylor Jr., War of 1812; Henry Stanbery, who defended President Andrew Johnson at his impeachment trial, 1868; Brent Spence, 37 years in the United States Congress, a lifetime member.