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August 21, 1773.  A warrant for the arrest of Nathaniel Sanders was issued by Culpepper County, VA.  Sanders and William McClannahan had been granted a license (by the county) to preach in limited areas, but they found that this limitation was contrary to their call to preach anywhere against the inconsistencies of the established church’s clergy.  Sanders was convicted and served an unknown period of time in the Culpepper jail.  One of ABHS’s oldest reference books (Asplund’s Baptist Register, 1790) shows Sanders at the Mont Poney church in Culpepper County with a membership of over 270.

 

August 19, 1770.   Reverend Hezekiah Smith of Haverhill, MA, founded the Baptist Church in Stratham, NH.  Smith was a chaplain in Washington’s army during the Revolutionary War, and he traveled extensively in New England on evangelistic tours.  ABHS has some of the Stratham’s original church records, and several books that contain biographical information about Smith.  One reference books notes that he baptized 35 people in one month in the area around Stratham.

August 17, 1855.  Pennsylvania’s Northumberland Baptist Association took a strong stand against slavery.   While many associations merge or change names, Northumberland is still in existence and has been sending ABHS their association minutes since 1822.  Association minutes have a great deal of information about individual churches and their pastors.

August 13, 1808.  Isaac McCoy was licensed to preach from Silver Creek Baptist Church in Indiana.  McCoy became a pioneer missionary to American Indians and Director of the American Indian Mission Association.  ABHS has his papers, including correspondence, an autobiography and the manuscript of History of Baptist Indian Missions. In addition, there are books and articles about McCoy in the archives.

 

August 11, 1822.  Helen Maria Griggs was baptized and joined a Baptist church in Brookline, MA.  She offered herself to go to Burma, unmarried and alone, but the board had never sent a single lady to the mission field alone.  After examination, the board appointed her in 1829.  Before she sailed, however, she met and married Francis Mason, a student at Newton Theological Institution.  Their journey to Calcutta took 122 days; they then went on to Burma. Helen became proficient in the Burmese and Sgau Karen languages and was able to teach and write in both.  On a furlough to the States, she left her children in the care of family while she went back to Burma.  Although many children and even adults did not survive the conditions in the mission field, Helen was criticized for leaving her children.  Her decision was defended by the editors of Christian periodicals and attitudes quickly changed although the pain of leaving children did not.  Helen wrote:  “We have heard of the tortures of the Inquisition; but I do not know that they could exceed this self-sacrifice.”  ABHS has the record of many missionaries which show the illnesses, deaths, and sacrifices they endured.

August 8, 1789.  Virginia Baptists met with President George Washington to lobby for guarantees of religious liberty.  The Congress of the fledgling United States voted on the first version of the Bill of Rights on August 24, where the religious liberty provision was the third article.  ABHS has many statements, letters and books about the Baptist’s fight for religious liberty.

August 4, 1842.  Franklin College became the first college in Indiana to admit women.  Founded in 1834, it is a liberal arts college with over 1000 students, now about half women.  ABHS has historic information from Franklin College.

August 3, 1836.  August Hopkins Strong was born in Rochester, NY.  He was President of Rochester Theological Seminary in 1872-1912. A noted theologian, he was also a pastor in Massachusetts and Ohio.  The Rochester Theological Seminary merged with Crozer Theological Seminary  and Colgate Theological Seminary to become Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School.  ABHS has many records from all three schools and CRCDS as well as the papers of A.H. Strong, including his autobiography (4 volumes), lectures and sermon.  Part of the ABHS archives were houses at Colgate Rochester until about 2007.

August 2, 1786.  Stephen Gano was ordained into the ministry by his father, John and several other pastors in the Gold Street Baptist Church in New York City.  A medical doctor by profession, he had been captured at sea in the Revolutionary War, escaped from Turk’s Island where the British left him and 34 others, recaptured and repatriated in a prisoner exchange.  After his ordination he served at the First Baptist Church in Providence, RI where he served until his death in 1828.  He increased the membership of the church from 165 to 647.  ABHS has many articles on the life of Stephen Gano and several books on the Gano family.

July 31, 1861  Helen Barrett Montgomery was born in Kingsville, OH.  She is known as an educator and writer, but was also a social reformer.
In 1921 she was the first woman to be elected president of the Northern Baptist Convention, and the first of any religious denomination in the U.S.  Before that, in 1899, she had been the first woman elected to the Rochester (NY) School Board, the first elected to any public office in that city.  This was 20 years before women had the vote.
Montgomery was also a scholar, translating the New Testament from the original Greek, the first woman to do so.  ABHS has many records related to Montgomery’s life and work.

August 29, 1840.  Ellen Cushing was born in Kingston, MA.  Cushing was first an educator who assisted freed slaves in entering post-way society.  Later she went as a missionary to Burma with her husband, Josiah, where they collaborated on an English-Shan dictionary.  In the late 1890s, she started the Baptist Training Institute in Philadelphia to train single women missionaries.  The BTI moved to Bryn Mawr and became known as Ellen Cushing Junior College.

 

July 27, 1707  The Philadelphia Baptist Association was founded as the first Baptist association in the U.S.  Five churches began the association which has grown to 124 congregations today.  ABHS has records and minutes from this association beginning in 1770.

July 25, 1817, John Mason Peck and his family began their journey west in a small, one-horse wagon.  Over a thousand miles and four months later they reached St. Louis.  Peck preached up and down the Mississippi Valley, founding churches and ministering to Indians and pioneers alike.  He also founded what later would become Shurtleff College in Illinois.  ABHS has a portrait of Peck, his correspondence (1833-1852), and several writings, including a memoir.

$500 will be awarded for the best essay in any area of Baptist history. The author must  not have published a major scholarly work and entries should be no more than 25 pages (excluding notes).  Manuscript must be double-spaced and citations must follow the Chicago Manual of Style.  This prize was established in honor of Robert G. Torbet to encourage development of young scholars in the field of Baptist history studies.  Send essays by September 1, 2020 to American Baptist Historical Society 3001 Mercer U. Drive Atlanta GA 30341 Electronic submissions: ABHS@ABHSarchives.org. For more information: TorbetPrize Flyer 2020.

 

 

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.  All three men suffered arrest and punishment for their Baptist convictions.

July 16, 1759:  Rev. Isaac Backus posted a notice at First Baptist Church of Middleborough, MA, that a list of church members was needed, 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 working to eradicate state support of churches, maintaining that it robbed the local Baptist churches of being able to build their own meetinghouses, support their pastors, and establish colleges to train preachers. Eventually freedom of religion was included in the Bill of Rights that was added to the U.S. Constitution. ABHS has a collection of Isaac Backus’s papers including sermons, correspondence, and a journal of family data.

July 13, 1813  Ann and Adoniram Judson arrived in Rangoon, Burma and began their mission work.  Ann died in 1826, while Adoniram worked in Burma for 37 years.  ABHS has several letters from Ann some of which recount their change in views on baptism, and 5 linear feet of correspondence of Adoniram’s as well as other artifacts in the Judson Memorial Room at ABHS including the trunk, desk, and chair which Adoniram used in Burma.