High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! It was one hundred and forty four years ago that the history of Wesley United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas had its humble beginning. The congregation of Wesley Church was established at the end of the Civil War for freed people in the Austin Area. On March 4, 1865, the Reverend Joseph Welch, Presiding Elder of the Texas District of the Mississippi Mission Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, presided over the meeting at which Wesley was founded. This historical meeting was held in the basement of the old Tenth Street M. E. Church, South in Austin, Texas.