I'm no historian of American protestant churches, but, if memory serves me correctly, the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized shortly after the Revolution and experienced healthy growth until shortly before WWII when it reunited with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the Methodist Protestant Church to become the Methodist Church, the name by which it's known today. I'm sure there are others on the list with more knowledge of the history and the church probably maintains a website that give a more detailed but capsule history of the church. Incidentally, there is no current connection between the Episcopal Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church, but both have their roots in the Pre-Revolutionary Anglican Church of England; John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, was, in fact, an ordained Anglican minister. Best regards, Kelvin Kean Elverson, Pennsylvania