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May 20, 1775.  George Liele  was formally ordained, the first black Baptist in America to be so.  A slave in South Carolina, Liele  was freed shortly after the beginning of the Revolution .   He supported the British in the war for independence, and after the war, migrated to Jamaica in 1783.  The following year he established the first Baptist church there which he named the Ethiopian Baptist Church.  Liele also established a school in Jamaica.  Deborah Van Broekhoven, ABHS’s Director Emeritus, is one of the editors of a George Liele’s Life and Legacy.  A portrait of Liele  by Averett Shannon hangs in the Reading Room at ABHS.

May 18, 1814.  The Triennial Convention (so called because it met every 3 years) was organized in Philadelphia for the purpose of supporting foreign missions.  Luther Rice was one of the primary movers of this organization, which eventually transformed into International Ministries.  Rice was ordained with Adoniram Judson and sailed with him to India.  He returned to the United States primarily to encourage support for Judson’s mission in Burma.

May 17, 1907.  The Northern Baptist Convention was organized at Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, DC.  A general meeting of all Baptist societies was called, and the American Baptist Home Mission Society, the American Baptist Publication Society and the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society responded. They formed a voluntary organization named the Northern Baptist convention.  ABHS holds the records of these societies (and others), and the American Baptist Quarterly published a chronology of the denomination in 1995.

May 14, 1754.  John Leland, leading Baptist advocate of religious freedom, was born in Grafton, MA. He was an outspoken abolitionist and an important figure in the struggle for religious liberty in the United States.   Leland also later opposed the rise of missionary societies among Baptists.  ABHS has many books with biographical information about Leland, and books and pamphlets of his writings.

May 11, 1972.  The American Baptist Convention became the American Baptist Churches in the U. S. A.  ABHS has records that document the history of both the Convention and ABCUSA.  The American Baptist Quarterly, published by ABHS, also has a chronology of the ABCUSA in the June, 1995 issue.

May 7, 1668.  Thomas Goold and two others were banished from Massachusetts because of their Baptist beliefs.  This followed a trial for his being absent from church. Even though the jury acquitted Goold, the judge fined him.  He refused to pay, so was imprisoned.  The Governor called for a debate about baptism on April 14 and 15, which Goold was judged to have lost, and so was banished with  William Turner, and John Farnum. They did not leave, however so were thrown in prison again.  After a year in prison Goold escaped with his family to semi-banishment on Noddle’s Island, located in the middle of Boston Harbor outside the court’s jurisdiction.

May 5, 1773.  Boston area Baptists agreed to stop paying church taxes in protest of the establishment of a state religion.  Baptists and Boston authorities were often at odds regarding freedom of religion, and ABHS has many books and pamphlets that examine the issue.  (Use Foundations article for photo)

May 3, 1850.  Charles Spurgeon, world-renowned Baptist preacher and writer was baptized at the age of 16.  Spurgeon was the pastor of the congregation of the New Park Street Chapel (later the Metropolitan Tabernacle) in London for 38 years.  Spurgeon produced powerful sermons of penetrating thought and precise exposition. His oratory skills held his listeners spellbound in the Metropolitan Tabernacle and many Christians hold his writings in exceptionally high regard among devotional literature.  ABHS has some of Spurgeon’s correspondence (1865-1890)  involving personal matters and pastoral concerns.  There are also many of Spurgeon’s writings in the Colgate Historical Collection.

May 2, 1883. Nannie Helen Burroughs, editor and National Baptist Convention leader was born in Orange, VA.  She was president of the National Training School for Women and Girls which opened in 1909 in Washington, DC. She was known for her oratorical powers and executive ability.  She lectured in various parts of the country and wrote for denominational papers.  In 1905 she attended the World’s Baptist Congress in London and gave an address on ‘Woman’s Part in the World’s Work’.  ABHS has a vertical file and  several books with information about Burroughs.

May 1, 1845.  The Triennial Convention approved the (Executive) Committee’s recommendation that if a slave holder wanted to be a missionary, he or she had to be approved by the whole convention.   In the previous December, the Alabama Convention had sent a question about this, which the Committee answered.  This vote supported the Committee’s answer that it would be against their conscious to appoint a slave holder.  This was the reason that the southern churches withdrew and formed the Southern Baptist Church and their own Foreign Missionary Society.

April 30, 1915:  Ellen Cushing died in Providence, RI.  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 later became Ellen Cushing College.

 

April 29, 1840:  the American Baptist Anti-Slavery Convention held its first session in New York.  Until then, the Baptists had maintained a strained peace by carefully avoiding discussion of the topic of slavery. But in 1840, an American Baptist Anti-Slavery Convention brought the issue into the open.  The Baptist Foreign Mission Board denied a request by the Alabama Convention that slave owners be eligible to become missionaries. Finally, a Baptist Free Mission Society was formed and refused Southern money. The southern members withdrew and formed the Southern Baptist Convention.  The split was completed in 1845.

 April 25:  Your essay on Baptist history may win the ($500) Torbet Prize.  Deadline is September 1.  In addition, it will be published in the American Baptist Quarterly.  See more information  here:  TorbetPrize Flyer 2019.

April 22, 1834: Johann Oncken was one of the first Baptists in Germany to be baptized.  Born in Germany, but raised in Scotland and England, Oncken embraced believer’s baptism by immersion after much study and consultation.  The Continental Society appointed him as a missionary to Germany where his ministry, although plagued by civil and religious persecution, prospered beyond his wildest expectations. In 1834, Barnas Sears, an American Baptist visiting on the continent baptized Oncken and his wife, along with five other believers, in the Elbe River. The following day they were organized into a Baptist church with Oncken as their pastor.   It is estimated that Oncken was responsible for distributing over two million Bibles and untold millions of gospel tracts in Europe. His motto was “Every Baptist a missionary.”

April 19, 1836.  A. J. Gordon was born in Hew Hampton, N.H. For over 30 years he pastored two churches in Boston.  A respected evangelist, he founded Gordon College with his wife, Maria (first called Boston Missionary Training School).  He was involved in the American Baptist Missionary Union and founder of the prophecy magazine The Watchword.  The American Baptist Quarterly recently published an issue devoted to him “Adoniram Judson Gordon: American Baptist Pastor and Evangelical Leader.”

April 18, 1688:  Settlers in Germantown, PA adopted an anti-slavery document, the first one in America.  American Baptists have made Policy Statements and Resolutions on issues that affect people’s lives.  ABHS has a record of these statements which researchers often reference when visiting to do research.

April 17, 1666: Thomas Goold and his associates were fined by a Massachusetts court for holding illegal religious meetings.  There have been many posts on our page about the conflicts between the Baptists in Boston and the Massachusetts officials.  Laws did not allow for the freedom to start new churches, or to not baptize infants.  Church attendance was compulsory.  Baptists have had a long history of fighting for the separation of Church and State.  ABHS has the record of this long fight, including writings of early Baptists and resolutions of official bodies.

April 14, 1773:  Thomas Paul, a free black from New Hampshire was born.  He was self-taught, and in 1805 was ordained at Nottingham West, New Hampshire.  Reverend Paul formed the African Baptist Church in Boston (later known as the Joy Street Baptist Church) and served as pastor for more than 20 years.  He also helped establish the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York.  He was greatly respected wherever he was known.   ABHS has an extensive collection of annual minutes of Black associations and state conventions dating from 1835 – 1965.

April 12, 1850.  Adoniram Judson, the first Baptist missionary from the United States, died at sea on a voyage to the Isle of France.  He was 62 years old and had been a missionary in Burma for 37 years.  ABHS has the original manuscript letters he sent to Baptists in the United States, and many books about him and the Burma mission.  The mission to Burma was the catalyst that organized people to form mission societies to raise money for mission work.  ABHS also has the official records of various foreign missionary societies.

April 9, 1525: In the fourth month of Anabaptist history, 500 Anabaptists were baptized in Zurich, Switzerland.  Hulrich Zwingli and a group of reform-minded men were questioning infant baptisms and other practices of the Catholic Church as early as 1522, The Zurich Council ruled, in 1525, that all who continued to refuse to baptize their infants should be expelled from Zurich. In an act of defiance, in January 1525, a group of reformers took a believers’ baptism and thus began the Anabaptists (re-baptizers).  ABHS has many pamphlets and other writings dating from the early 1500 for and against Anabaptists.