A simple brick structure of red walls and white trim faces you, unchanged since it was raised in 1785, making it the oldest church building in Baltimore. Old Otterbein United Methodist Church was built in 1785 — the same year Maryland ratified the Constitution — by a congregation of German Reformed immigrants who had been meeting in private homes for years. The church was named for Philip William Otterbein, a German-born minister who had come to Baltimore in 1774 and became one of the founding figures of the United Brethren in Christ, a Protestant denomination that later merged to form the United Methodist Church.
Otterbein himself is buried in the churchyard behind the building. The church is a model of Georgian simplicity — red brick walls, white trim, a modest cupola, and arched windows that let in the Maryland light. The original pews, pulpit, and much of the interior woodwork survive.
Around this church in 1785 were the working docks, warehouses, and shipyards of Baltimore's early waterfront; today it is surrounded by the hotels and convention facilities of the Inner Harbor district. The contrast is disorienting and instructive — this quiet churchyard has watched the entire arc of Baltimore's development from a small colonial port to a major industrial city to a service-economy waterfront destination. Services have been held here continuously for 240 years.