In 1863, the congregation of Zion Methodist Episcopal Church became split over the issue of slavery, and the Southern-sympathizing Grace M.E. Church formed. The Grace members decided in 1882 to finance a $12,000 Gothic Revival stone structure designed by J. Benjamin Brown, to be placed at the corner of Race and Muir Streets, which was then in a residential district. Construction began around May 1, 1882, and the church opened in August 1883. The Grace United Methodist Church building was called a “model of architectural beauty and symmetry,” and it’s one of the Eastern Shore’s best examples of 19th-century Gothic Revival design.