Philip Embury was born in Ballygaran,
County Limerick, on 21 September 1729. His parents were members of the colony of Germans that emigrated from the
Palatinate to Ireland early in the eighteenth century, and in which
John Wesley labored with great success. The colony had formed from Protestant Germans forced to abandon their farms on the Rhine due to French Catholic raids and a harsh winter. In 1709, Queen Anne of England accepted the refugees, settling a group of families in Catholic Ireland to boost the Protestant presence. Embury was educated at a school near Ballingrane, County Limerick, and learned the carpenter's trade. He was converted on Christmas day, 1752, became a local preacher at Court-Matrix in 1758, and married Margaret Switzer that fall. In 1760, due to rising rents and scarce land, he came to
New York City and worked as a school teacher. at Camden Valley, New York, where he continued to work at his trade during the week, and preached every Sunday. He and several others had received a grant of to develop for the manufacture of
linen. He organized among Irish emigrants at Ashgrove, near Camden Valley, the first Methodist society within the bounds of what became the flourishing and influential
Troy Conference. He died suddenly, in consequence of an accident in mowing, in August 1775, and was buried on a neighboring farm. In 1832, his remains were removed to Ashgrove churchyard, and in 1866 to Woodland Cemetery,
Cambridge, New York, where in 1873 a monument to him was unveiled, with an address by Bishop
Matthew Simpson. ==Notes==