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.
