Category: Uncategorized

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 elected the first woman president of the Northern Baptist Convention and the first of any religious denomination in the U.S. Before that, 1899, she was the first woman elected to the Rochester (NY) School Board, and any public office in the city.  This was 20 years before women had the vote.  She was also a scholar, publishing a translation of the New Testament from the original Greek, the first woman to do so.  ABHS has many articles written by Montgomery, and many books and articles about her.

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 1769.

 

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, starting churches, preaching to the Indians and pioneers alike.  He also founded what later would become Shurtleff College in Illinois and established a Christian periodical.  ABHS has a portrait of Peck, his correspondence (1833-1852), and several writings, including a memoir.

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.

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.   There are artifacts in the Judson Memorial Room at ABHS including Adoniram’s trunk and desk which he used in Burma.

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 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.