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June 16, 1636.  Residents of Providence Plantations (R.I.) drew up a compact allowing religious freedom.  This only applied to the residents of the Plantations, but was a forerunner of the first amendment (see June 8 post).  Providence Plantations was a colonial plantation that was the first permanent European American settlement in present-day Rhode Island. It was established at Providence in 1636 by English clergyman Roger Williams and a small band of followers who had left the oppressive atmosphere of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to seek freedom of worship

June 15, 1784.  Isaac McCoy, foremost white advocate of Native American rights was born in Fayette County, PA. While still young, Isaac was inspired to become a missionary to Native Americans and determined on that work.  McCoy, his son John, his daughter Delilah and her missionary husband Johnston Lykins, worked together as missionaries to the Shawnee and Lenape (Delaware), following them to what is now Kansas City, Missouri, on the border of Indian Territory and near their reservations. The younger McCoy established a trading post at Westport, Missouri.  In 1840, McCoy wrote one of the earliest, most personally informed reports on the Midwestern Native American tribes, The History of Baptist Indian Missions. In 1842 he returned East to Louisville, Kentucky, where he directed the Baptist American Indian Mission Association. He wrote additional works on Indians and the missions. He died there in 1846 and was buried in Western Cemetery.    ABHS has many books by and about Isaac McCoy as well as 10 folders of his missionary correspondence.  His personal papers are also held by ABHS.

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

June 9, 1834.  William Carey died at age 72 in his 42nd 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.  See post on May 30.   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’. That could be anything from preaching in public to complaining about the lack of religious freedom, or any other number of offenses. Baptists were not free to preach, baptize, or meet together without government sanction.

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, 1814. The Foreign Mission Society, 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.

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. 

Have you finished your to-do list and watched everything in your Netflix queue?  Then we have a great opportunity for you!

The American Baptist Historical Society has launched a pilot project to transcribe original church records and we need your help.  Transcribing these handwritten records will allow us to make them searchable in an online database. For our pilot project, we are transcribing the records of the First Baptist Church of Christ, Chautauqua (later Stockton), NY.  The pages of the record book have been digitized and uploaded to Zooniverse where you can see them and transcribe them.

You do not have to be a scholar to help us, though you do need to be able to read cursive handwriting.  All of the instructions are on the website at the link below. So check it out and find out what happened when the “Church met according to appointment and found a great division.”

https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/abhsarchives/pilot-project-of-the-american-baptist-historical-society

ABHS is applying for a grant to fund setting up a more extensive crowd-sourced transcription project than this pilot project.  It might help our funding chances to be able to point to interest shown for the pilot project.  Take a break from your usual and join the ABHS transcription community!

 

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.