News

July 19, 1651.  John Clarke, Obadiah Holmes and John Crandall arrived in Lynn, MA, and began preaching illegally. Baptists were considered heretics and were banned from Massachusetts. He spent time in the Boston jail after preaching in Lynn.   Clarke eventually helped found Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.  Holmes was severely whipped for his heretical views. A year later he was named pastor of the Newport, RI, Baptist church where he stayed for 30 years.  Crandall was imprisoned and whipped, and eventually help found the Baptist church at Westerly, Rl.  ABHS has many articles and histories from the Baptist churches in Lynn.

July 16, 1759  Rev. Isaac Backus posted a notice at First Baptist Church of Middleborough, MA, that a list must be made of all who belong to the church.  This was so that they could be excused from the ‘church tax’ that each resident paid to support the Standing Order churches.  Backus spent a lot of time fighting to eradicate state support of churches.  He maintained that it robbed the local Baptist churches from building their own buildings, supporting their pastors, and establishing colleges to train preachers and expand their ministries.  Eventually the Religious Freedom Act was included in the Bill of Rights. ABHS has a collection of Isaac Backus’s papers including sermons, correspondence, and a journal of family data.  There are many of his writings at ABHS, also.

July 13, 1813  Ann and Adoniram Judson arrived in Rangoon, Burma and began their mission work.  Ann died in 1826, but Adoniram worked in Burma for 37 years.  ABHS has several letters from Ann some of which deal with the change of views on baptism.  There are 5 linear feet of correspondence and other memorabilia of Adoniram’s.

ABHS announces the the September 1 deadline for essays competing for the TorbetPrize  for the Best Essay in any area of Baptist History.  The award is $500 plus publication in the American Baptist Quarterly.

To win, the author can not have already published a major scholarly work.  Entries should be no more than 25 pages (excluding notes).  Manuscript must be double-spaced in accordance with
the Chicago Manual of Style.  The topic is any area of Baptist history.

Entries should be sent to: American Baptist Historical Society, Mercer University; 3001 Mercer University Drive; Atlanta GA 30341.  Or, Electronic submissions should be sent to abhs@abhsarchives.org. 

July 10, 1851  Marcia Dawes Ingalls, with her husband Lowell Ingalls, sailed for the mission station in Burma.  Even though Lowell died in 1856, Marcia continued her work  for 46 years.  She endured two fires that destroyed virtually all her personal property and feared for her life when the chief of a hostile tribe and his warriors approached her home.  She showed courage by confronting them kindly and told them stories about America.  They left without harming anyone.  ABHS has 16 folders of correspondence from the Ingalls.

July 6, 1849   The first Baptist Church in California was organized in San Francisco (First Baptist) by Osgood Church Wheeler.  He also started churches in San Jose and Sacramento.  First Baptist has had 22 pastors, and when one of its previous buildings burned down in the 1906 earthquake, the congregation moved their facilities to what has now become the heart of the City, near Market and Van Ness.  ABHS has a large collection of directories, histories and articles about First Baptist, San Francisco.

July 1:  1777 The Continental Congress officially appointed Hezekiah Smith as chaplain in the U.S. Army. He started the Baptist church in Haverhill, PA, and from there 13 other churches were started by Smith and others in Haverhill. ABHS has Smith’s  diaries (1762-1805), six addresses and sermons delivered by Smith to the army plus some correspondence (1776-1780) on microfilm.

June 29, 1849.  William J. Simmons, a founder of the National Baptist Convention, was born in Charleston, SC. Born into slavery William J. Simmons served as the second president of what would later become Simmons College of Kentucky between 1880 and 1890. He was also a prominent historian and biographer of African American men.  When William was a child, he and his mother escaped to Bordentown, New Jersey.

June 23, 1798.  The Nova Scotia Baptist Association was formed.  It was the first organization of Baptists in Canada.  Many Baptists who supported the Crown in the American Revolution resettled in  Nova Scotia following the war.   ABHS has Association minutes from several places in Canada.

June 22, 1875. Dong Gong was ordained to ministry in Portland, OR.  He was the first Asian-American to be ordained by the Baptists. An immigrant from China, he was  converted to Christianity and baptized by Rev. John Francis in San Francisco.  Dong Gong started a Chinese mission in Portland about 1875.

June 19, 1808.  First Baptist Church in Philadelphia, offered “brethren of color” the use of its building.  Blacks could be offered membership in a ‘white’ church, but that didn’t mean they would be considered equal.  A researcher at ABHS recently found a record where a black member of a church was refused permission to bury his child in the church cemetery.  ABHS has many of First Church Philadelphia’s original church records.  Handwritten records go back as far as the 1750s.

June 18, 1781.  Severns Valley Church was organized in Kentucky.  It was the first Baptist church west of the 13 original colonies.  ABHS has Association records from the Severns Valley beginning in 1899.

June 16, 1636.  Residents of Providence Plantations (R.I.) drew up a compact allowing religious freedom.  This only applied to the residents of the Plantations, but was a forerunner of the first amendment (see June 8 post).  Providence Plantation was a colonial plantation that was the first permanent European American settlement in present-day Rhode Island. It was established at Providence in 1636 by English clergyman Roger Williams and a small band of followers who had left the oppressive atmosphere of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to seek freedom of worship.

June 15, 1784.  Isaac McCoy, foremost white advocate of Native American rights was born in Fayette County, PA. While still young, Isaac was inspired to become a missionary to Native Americans and determined on that work.  McCoy, his son John, his daughter Delilah and her missionary husband Johnston Lykins, worked together as missionaries to the Shawnee and Lenape (Delaware), following them to what is now Kansas City, Missouri, on the border of Indian Territory and near their reservations. The younger McCoy established a trading post at Westport, Missouri.  In 1840, McCoy wrote one of the earliest, most personally informed reports on the Midwestern Native American tribes, The History of Baptist Indian Missions. In 1842 he returned East to Louisville, Kentucky, where he directed the Baptist American Indian Mission Association. He wrote additional works on Indians and the missions. He died there in 1846 and was buried in Western Cemetery^.   ABHS has many books by and about Isaac McCoy as well as 10 folders of his missionary correspondence.  His personal papers are also held by ABHS.

June 14, 1844.  The first issue of the Sabbath Recorder was published by the Seventh Day Baptists.  Seventh Day Baptists observes the Sabbath on the seventh-day of the week—Saturday—in accordance with the Biblical Sabbath of the Ten Commandments.  ABHS has issues of this magazine beginning in 1844 to present.  It is still being published.