News

Nov. 11:  Veteran’s Day. Baptists have been ministering to veterans from the time of the Revolutionary War, when David Jones was a military chaplain and the Civil War, when Joanna Moore taught veterans to read and write.  WW I and WWII, the Vietnam War and more recent conflicts have seen Baptist chaplains and Baptist soldiers.  ABHS has the personal correspondence and diaries of David Jones and a Letterbook with two sets of letters (1865) and goodbye notes from soldiers of the 56^th US Colored Infantry in Helena Arkansas (from the collection of Joanna P. Moore).

Nov. 9, 1800.  Mary Webb organized the first missionary society called Boston Female Society for Missionary Purposes.  Women’s Missionary organizations started schools, training centers, community centers and other mission programs.  They also recruited and trained women missionaries to staff these programs.  Women’s Baptist Home Mission Society of the East, which was organized in Boston in 1877, was one of these. ABHS has minutes of the Home Mission Societies and their publications like Tidings.

Nov. 4, 1752.  Over 100 years after Williams’ banishment, Isaac Backus was still fighting the state church’s tyranny. His mother told of her persecution at the hands of the Puritans and it persuaded her son to fight for religious freedom. ABHS has Backus’ published sermons, correspondence and a journal of family data in our collections.

Nov. 3, 1635:  Roger Williams, was banished from the colony of Massachusetts because he preached ‘new and dangerous ideas’ to his congregants. The colonists had set up a Puritan theocracy and allowed no deviances.  Williams went to Rhode Island and began the settlement of Providence Plantations.  ABHS has many volumes by and about Roger Williams.

Nov. 1, 1812:  Luther Rice, the father of American Baptist of foreign missions, was baptized in Calcutta, India.  He was ordained and sailed with Adoniram Judson; like Judson he became convinced of the rightness of adult baptism on the voyage.  After his baptism, he returned to the USA to raise money for missionaries like Adoniram and Ann Judson.  ABHS has his journals and correspondence dating from 1803.

October 31, 1789:  John Mason Peck, pioneer missionary to the western frontier (Ohio and Illinois), was born in Litchfield.  Having secured funding as “missionaries to the Missouri Territory,” the Peck and his missionary partner Welch and their families traveled westward, arriving in St. Louis in December, 1817. Peck and Welch organized the First Baptist Church of St. Louis, the first Protestant church in the city, and baptized two converts in the Mississippi River in February, 1818. By year’s end, they also soon founded the first missionary society in the West: The United Society for the Spread of the Gospel. Peck became active in establishing Bible societies and Sunday School associations, distributing bibles as well as spreading literacy and Christian principles. Peck moved to Rock Springs, Illinois in 1822 to farm, and arranged a circuit to visit the various societies which he continued to establish, as well as isolated farms. On one trip, Peck visited Daniel Boone, then nearly 80, and later wrote a book about the frontiersman’s life.  ABHS holds Peck’s correspondence from 1833-1852 and a journal from 1854.

 

The American Baptist Historical Society (ABHS) seeks applicants for the position of Administrative Assistant.  The Administrative Assistant performs routine office tasks under the supervision of the ABHS Executive Director and other staff as appropriate.

The American Baptist Historical Society maintains the oldest and largest Baptist historical collection in the US, documenting the history of Baptists generally and American Baptist Churches, USA (the most racially and ethnically diverse Protestant denomination in the US), specifically.  ABHS collections include books, periodicals, manuscripts, organizational records, and the beginning of a digitized and born-digital collection.  Staff provide reference services, both internally and to the public by appointment.

Click here for full description.  ABHistorical Society_Administrative Position_2020

October 15, 1752.  Elizabeth Backus, a fifty-four widow and mother of Reverend Isaac Backus, was arrested and imprisoned for two weeks for failing to pay the church tax that went to the official (Congregational) church.  In 1728 an Act was passed by the General Court of Massachusetts, exempting Baptists from the tax, but that was the personal tax only, the property tax was still liable.  ABHS has many writings of Isaac Backus and microfilms of his personal papers.

October 14, 1774:  The Warren Association in Massachusetts petitioned the Continental Congress for religious liberty.  The Warren Association was in the vanguard of the battle for religious freedom in early America. Baptists had been persecuted throughout their history; their struggles to attain their “privileges” led to the insertion of the anti-establishment clause in the Bill of Rights. In 1774 the Warren Association sent a delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to plead for religious freedom. Two years later, when a Baptist meeting in Pepperell, Massachusetts, was broken up by a mob, the Warren Association published an account of the affair, and engaged the people of Pepperell in a pamphlet war until they “made the town ashamed of what they had done.” ABHS holds the Warren Association Minutes from 1767.

October 10, 1779:  David Benedict born in New England. Although he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, he went to school, including Brown University.  While in seminary Benedict preached for Baptists in Pawtucket, RI, and following his graduation he was ordained and became the pastor of the newly established First Baptist Church in Pawtucket.  Benedict traveled (on horseback) collecting materials about Baptists, and sent out questionnaires for his History of the Baptists in the United States which was published in 1813. ABHS has a copy of Benedict’s History, and is it used frequently by researchers.

October 8. 1609.  John Clarke was born in Suffolk England.   He was a physician, Baptist minister, co-founder of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, author of its influential charter, and a leading advocate of religious freedom in the Americas.  He arrived in Boston where Baptists were considered heretics and were banned, in 1637 and decided to go to Rhode Island.  But Clarke wanted to make inroads there and spent time in the Boston jail after making a mission trip to the town of Lynn. The fledgling Rhode Island colony needed an agent in England, so Clarke handled the colony’s interests.  All of the other New England colonies were hostile to Rhode Island.  After the restoration of the monarchy in England in 1660, it was imperative that Rhode Island receive a royal charter to protect its territorial integrity. It was Clarke’s role to obtain such a document, and he saw this as an opportunity to include religious freedoms never seen before in any constitutional charter. He negotiated for months with Connecticut over territorial boundaries. Finally, he drafted the Rhode Island Royal Charter and presented it to the king, and it was approved with the king’s seal on 8 July 1663. This charter granted unprecedented freedom and religious liberty to Rhode Islanders and remained in effect for 180 years, making it the longest-lasting constitutional charter in history.

October 5, 1783.  William Carey was baptized in Northampton County, England.  Carey is known as the “father of modern missions.” He was a Particular Baptist minister, translator, social reformer and cultural anthropologist who founded the Serampore College and the Serampore University, the first degree awarding University in India.  He translated the Hindu classic the Ramayana into English, and the Bible into Bengali, Oriya, Assamese, Arabic, Marathi, Hindi and Sanskrit. ssssssWhen Adoniram and Ann Judson landed in India, they sought out Carey to talk about Baptist beliefs.

 

October 4, 1861.  Walter Rauschenbusch was born in Rochester, NY.  He is considered the father of the Christian social gospel.  From 1891-1892, Rauschenbusch studied economics and theology at the University of Berlin and industrial relations in England, Rauschenbusch’s work influenced, among others, Martin Luther King; Desmond Tutu; and his grandson, Richard Rorty. Rauschenbusch’s view of Christianity was that its purpose was to spread the Kingdom of God, not through a “fire and brimstone” style of preaching, but by the Christlike lives led by its members. Rauschenbusch did not understand Jesus’ death as an act of substitutionary atonement; rather, he came to believe that Jesus died “to substitute love for selfishness as the basis of human society.” Rauschenbusch wrote that “Christianity is in its nature revolutionary” and tried to remind society of that. He taught that the Kingdom of God “is not a matter of getting individuals to heaven, but of transforming the life on earth into the harmony of heaven.” ABHS has a large collection of Rauschenbusch family papers, correspondence, photographs, and lectures.