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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

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.

June 9, 1834.  William Carey died at age 72 in his 42^nd year as a missionary to India. A British Christian missionary, Particular Baptist minister, translator, social reformer and cultural anthropologist, Carey is known as the “father of modern missions.” His essay, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, led to the founding of the Baptist Missionary Society in England.   ABHS has many books and articles by and about William Carey

June 8,1789.  Baptists support James Madison’s First Amendment to the constitution.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

ABHS has many books and tracts written by Baptists about the need for freedom of religion in the newly formed United States of America

June 4– In 1768 Five Virginia Baptists were imprisoned by the state for ‘disturbing the peace’. This could mean that they were preaching without a license or in public.  Or, they could have been arguing about the preference for believer’s baptism. ABHS has many tracts and papers written by Baptists in favor of religious freedom.

June 3 – In 1883 a Scandinavian Baptist Church was formed in Seattle, WA.  This is the first Baptist church on the west coast.   ABHS has the histories of many churches in the United Sates.

May 30, 1792.  William Carey inspired the first modern mission movement when he preached a sermon on Isiah 54:2-3 (““Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide,  do not hold back…”)  He also wrote a missionary manifesto in which he called for the formation of a Baptist Missionary Society.  Carey himself went to India as a missionary, where Adoniram and Ann Judson came to him for baptism.  In 1818, the mission in India founded Serampore College to train indigenous ministers for the growing church and to provide education in the arts and sciences to anyone regardless of caste or country. ABHS has correspondence between Judson and Carey, as well as other correspondence and articles by Carey.  There are many books and articles about him, too.

May 25, 1803.  The American Baptist magazine was formed by a vote of the Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Society.  Originally named The Massachusetts Baptist Missionary Magazine, the name was changed to The American Baptist Magazine in 1817 and to The Baptist Missionary Magazine in 1836.  In 1910 it combined with the Home Missions Monthly and the name was changed to Missions.  The ‘s’ was dropped in 1967, and  the magazine merged with Crusader in 1970 to become The American Baptist magazine.  ABHS has all the issues of this line of magazines.

May 24, 1878.  Harry Emerson Fosdick, pastor, theologian, and peace and justice activist, was born in Buffalo. NY.  Graduating from Colgate University in 1900, and Union Theological Seminary in 1903, he was ordained and served churches in New Jersey and New York, including Riverside Church in Manhattan.    Fosdick became a central figure in the “Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy” within American Protestantism in the 1920s and 1930s and was one of the most prominent liberal ministers of the early 20th Century.  He presented the Bible as a record of the unfolding of God’s will, not as the literal “Word of God”. He saw the history of Christianity as one of development, progress, and gradual change.  ABHS has many books and articles about his life, and many more that he authored.

May 21.  The Iglesia Biblica Bautista Betel de Escondido (CA) celebrates their first anniversary under the leadership of Pastor Leopoldo Reyes Carballo.

May 21, 1814.  The Foreign Mission Society, a precursor to today’s Board of International Ministries was founded in Philadelphia following the Triennial Convention (see May 18).  ABHS is the official repository of the archives of the foreign mission societies and IM.  It contains correspondence between missionaries in places like Congo, Burma and India and the sending agencies. There are also Property Files which have the history of the property owned at one time by the Foreign Mission Societies.

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. ABHS has the handwritten minutes of the first, and subsequent, meeting.

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.