All Places

Inside the nearby Southwark Cathedral is the tomb of Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, a translator of the King James Bible. Be sure to see the John Harvard Chapel. Near the Southwark Cathedral is a full-sized reconstruction of the warship, Golden Hinde, used by Sir Francis Drake when he circumnavigated the world in 1577-80. copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in Read more...

Visit the Mayflower Memorial at the Barbican, from where the Pilgrims, in 1620, departed for the New World. Visit the Mayflower Museum just down the street. copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices   Plaque: On the 6th of September, 1620, in the Mayorality of Thomas Fownes, after being “kindly entertained Read more...

In the back of Amen Court, in the shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral, stands the only surviving wall of Newgate Prison, where many Baptists suffered and died. copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices   Famous Prisoners according to Wikipedia John Bradford, religious reformer – burned at the stake at Read more...

Ye Olde Yellow Meeting House, located on Yellow Meetinghouse Road, off Route 526, dates to about 1737. Its earliest records, beginning in 1766, are in a 165-page handwritten “Church Book: Giving an Account of ye First Settlement & Progress of the Baptists at Crosswicks, or Upper Freehold.”  In 1766, its forty-seven members organized into Crosswicks Baptist Church. In 1773, its Read more...

Watch Dr. David Saxon retell the story of Obadiah Holmes on Our Christian Heritage on VCY.tv In the Holmes family cemetery, on the west side of Vaucluse Avenue, just north of Green End Avenue, Route 138, a memorial tombstone honors the notable Obadiah Holmes, who suffered a public beating in Boston for preaching the gospel in a private home. He became successor Read more...

Newport Historical Society (NHS) houses the first Seventh-Day Baptist church in America. In 1671, Stephen Mumford led a small group of First Baptist to establish this church. In 1884, the NHS bought the Seventh-Day Baptists’ 1730 wooden chapel. In 1915, the NHS moved the elegant chapel from Barney Street to the rear of their headquarters, at 82 Touro Street. Here, Read more...

United Baptist Church, John Clarke Memorial, at 30 Spring Street, was founded in 1644 by John Clarke. It was America’s second Baptist church. Clarke was co-founder of Rhode Island and an early defender of liberty of conscience. copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices Read more...

Underneath the Roger Williams Statue, at Prospect Terrace, lie Williams’s ashes. With John Clarke, he was the co-founder of Rhode Island. (See Chapter 12). copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices   Photo by By Rhododendrites – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65213559 Read more...

First Baptist Church, founded by Roger Williams in 1638, was the earliest Baptist Church in America. Erected in 1775, its present building is at 75 N Main St. Its twelfth pastor, James Manning, was founder and president of nearby Brown University. copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices   Founded by Roger Read more...

In Titicut Parish Cemetery, at 41 Plymouth Street, Backus’ granite tomb is pulpit-shaped and holds an open Bible. Under the Bible is a bronze memorial plaque. copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices Read more...

Once known as “Backus Memorial Baptist Church,” First Baptist Church of North Middleboro, Massachusetts, is now in its third building since Isaac Backus founded it in 1756. It stands at the intersection of Plymouth and Bedford Streets. copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices   Photo from KJVChurches.com Read more...

At Williams College (Congregational), a twelve-foot-high marble monument, called the Haystack Prayer Meeting Memorial, commemorates “The Birthplace of American Foreign Missions 1806,” out of which came Baptists Adoniram Judson and Luther Rice. See the section, “Haystack Prayer Meeting at Williams College (1806),” in Chapter 17. copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Read more...

The Leland-Madison Memorial Park, six miles east of Orange, at the intersection of US 20/Constitution Highway and SR 658/Clifton Road, is the place where James Madison met in an oak grove with Baptist-Evangelist John Leland, to discuss the issue of religious freedom of conscience. This meeting led to the Bill of Rights. copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History Read more...

From Wikipedia: John Leland (May 14, 1754 – January 14, 1841) was an American Baptist minister who preached in Massachusetts and Virginia, as well as an outspoken abolitionist. He was an important figure in the struggle for religious liberty in the United States.[1][2][3] Leland also later opposed the rise of missionary societies among Baptists.[4]   In Cheshire Cemetery, Leland’s obelisk grave-marker displays a commemorative plaque. copyrighted and used by Read more...

On the corner of Church and School streets stands a concrete replica of the cider press that produced the gigantic cheese that John Leland gave to President Thomas Jefferson. In Cheshire Cemetery, Leland’s obelisk grave-marker displays a commemorative plaque, See “The Big Cheshire Cheese,” in Chapter 16. copyrighted and used by permission from David Beale, Baptist History in England and America: Read more...

George Whitefield (1714-70) was a noted evangelist, born in Gloucester, England. He met John and Charles Wesley at Oxford and with them formed the Holy Club. Ordained deacon in 1736, he followed the Wesleys to Georgia in 1738 and founded Bethesda Orphanage (oldest in American) at Savannah (1740). After doctrinal differences with the Wesleys he founded the Calvinistic Methodists. He Read more...

Photo By Michael Kotrady – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21332302   From 5 Minutes In Church History:   Stephen Nichols (SN): We are on location in Colonial Williamsburg. I’m here with a good friend of ours, Dr. Steve Lawson. Steve Lawson (SL): Steven, it’s great to be with you. I can’t believe where we are right now. SN: We Read more...

Photo By Skyring at the English language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11611272   From marker:   St. John’s Church symbolizes the foundations of our republic and the founding ideal of liberty. Here, Patrick Henry’s masterful argument summoned Americans toward independence with the immortal words, “Give me liberty or give me death” during the Second Virginia Convention of March 1775. In Read more...

Samuel Davies was born in Delaware, trained in Pennsylvania, and at 23 years of age, a missionary to Virginia. He was a “New Light” Presbyterian (like George Whitfield) that taught salvation by grace alone, thru a personal conversion that resulted in a Romans 12:2 transformation. He arrived in Hanover County, Virginia, and took Samuel Morris’ reading houses  (such as we Read more...