USA > Rhode Island > Providence County > Providence > State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations at the end of the century : a history, Volume 2 > Part 10
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Dr. William Rogers, the first student of Rhode Island College, who was later settled in Philadelphia, was first called to preach in the Sec- ond Newport Church, about 1771-2. After the Revolution this church is said to have swerved from its original distinctive faith and practice.
BALLOU MEETING-HOUSE, CUMBERLAND, NEAR WOONSOCKET LINE, ERECTED 1740.
Elder William Gammell, the father of the professor of the same name, was subsequently among its pastors.
The Six Principle Church in North Kingstown is interesting because of the tradition that it was formed about 1666, through the influence of Roger Williams, who had an Indian trading-house in the neighbor- hood, although the earliest records of the organization belong to 1710. Near the first year above mentioned Thomas Baker, one of the pastors of the Second Church at Newport, is known to have removed to Kings- town, and is said to have soon gathered a church of which he continued in charge until his death in 1710, when Richard Sweet became pastor.
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Other early Six Principle Baptist churches in Rhode Island were those of Smithfield, Jonathan Sprague, pastor, formed not later than 1706; Richmond, Daniel Everett, pastor, organized as early as 1723; Scituate, Samuel Fiske, pastor, formed in 1725 and growing, in a century, to a membership of two hundred and seventy-six; South Kingstown, Daniel Everett, pastor, established as early as 1729; and Warwick, of which the earliest records go back to only 1741, although the church is known to have been in existence in 1730, with sixty-five members under the pastoral care of Manasseh Martin. The Six Principle Church in Cum- berland appears to have been organized in 1732. Although, like sev- eral others of the early churches of this order, the Cumberland Church has ceased to exist as an organization, it yet challenges attention by reason of its venerable sanctuary, known as the "Old Ballou Meeting- House", still standing just north of "Iron Mountain" or "Iron Rock Hill", in the northwestern part of the town. The quaint building, with its heavy, narrow gallery, is much resorted to by visitors, it being claimed that it was erected about 1740. The fact that the original deed of the land bears the date of 1749, "in the twenty-second year of the reign of George, King of Great Britain", suggests that year as the time of building the meeting-house.
Still other Six Principle churches were formed later in the eight- eenth century. In 1770-1 there arose, in the Providence church, a notable controversy, which led to the secession of the pastor, Samuel Winsor, and a large number of members to form a Six Principle church in Johnston, an adjacent town. The Rev. James Manning, President of Rhode Island College, at that time in the process of re- moval from Warren to Providence, had been, by vote of the church in the latter town, admitted to the Communion, although, while having himself received the Laying on of Hands, he was not unwilling to join in the Lord's Supper with those who had not done so. Thereupon, April 18, 1771, it being church meeting, Elder Winsor appeared and presented a paper, signed by certain members living out of town, as follows: "Brethren and Sisters, - We must in conscience withdraw ourselves from all those who do not hold strictly to the six principles of the doctrine of Christ, as laid down in Hebrews, vi, 1, 2." Elder Winsor, Deacon John Dyer and eighty-five other members then with- drew and were organized into a separate church, as already stated, Mr. Manning becoming pastor in Providence. In 1774 the Johnston church erected a large meeting-house about two miles west of Provi- dence, Elder Winsor surviving until January, 1802. Towards the close of the seventeenth century a few of the earliest Six Principle
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churches united in a Yearly Meeting. As early as 1729 this body con- sisted of twelve churches and about eighteen ordained elders, mostly in Rhode Island, but some in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and one in New York. In 1802 it was composed of twenty-one churches, a num- ber of them apparently outside of this State. In 1813, Mr. Benedict stated that this Yearly Meeting, on account of its making the Laying on of Hands a term of communion and of its inclination to the Armin- ian System of doctrine, had no connection with any of the neighboring Associations. It then contained thirteen churches and twelve minis- ters, eight only of the churches being in Rhode Island. By 1827 there were no less than eighteen Six Principle churches in the State and in 1850 nineteen. In 1853 there were twenty-two ministers and seven- teen hundred and sixty-six members. Since that period the Denomina- tion has declined, some of its buildings being closed or used by others. In 1891 there were said to be nine hundred and thirty-seven members, perhaps not all in Rhode Island. In January, 1895, there was incor- porated The General Six Principle Baptist Conference of Rhode Island. At the opening of the twentieth century there are, in this Denomination, ten churches, with six ordained ministers and six hun- dred and thirty-four members, and eight Sunday Schools with sixty- four officers and teachers and four hundred and thirty-two scholars. Small as is now the body there is still evident in it a genuine spiritual interest. The quaint titles of two of its organizations, the Maple Root Church and the Knotty Oak Church, yet in use, illustrate the primitive flavor of this ancient Denomination.
The Seventh Day Baptists .- These, sometimes called also Sabbata- rians, differ as a body from the Baptists generally, in no other article but as to the day of the week to be observed as the Sabbath. They hold that, as the Ten Commandments are still binding on Christians, the Seventh day of the week, instead of the First, in accordance with the Fourth Commandment, ought to be kept as the Christian Sabbath.
The Seventh Day Baptists of Rhode Island had an origin organically quite independent of the English body of the same name. Sab- batarian sentiments were first brought from England to America by Stephen Mumford, in 1665, and introduced by him into the First Baptist Church in Newport. From this church seven members seced- ed, in December 1867, and organized in that town the first Sabbatarian church in this country, with William Hiscox as the pastor. A few members of this body, apparently children of Samuel Hubbard, An- drew Longworthy and William Hiscox, original constituents of the Newport church, soon joined the first freemen of Westerly, then em-
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bracing, as well as the present township of that name, those now known as Hopkinton, Richmond and Charlestown. This town was, however, by no means, as has sometimes been supposed, a Sabbatarian Colony, it having been purchased from the Indians previously to the arrival of Stephen Mumford in America. A Seventh-Day Baptist meeting- house was built about 1680, in that part of Westerly now called Hop- kinton, but the first Sabbatarian church in that locality was not organ- ized until 1708, when Rev. John Maxson, who was the first white child born on the island of Rhode Island, having been ordained at about the age of seventy years, became the pastor or "Leading Elder". It is interesting to note that he was succeeded in the pastorate by two of his sons, in order. This church has since enjoyed the services of a long line of faithful pastors and has had an apparently unbroken prosper- ity. The influence of large revivals upon its life and growth has been most marked. In 1769 Gov. Samuel Ward and about fifteen others were added to the membership, in 1770 there were forty-five additions, in 1779 sixty-five, in 1780 fifty-three, in 1785 forty-one and in 1786 one hundred and forty-six. By 1793, after two hundred and four members had been set off to form three new churches, there were left four hundred and thirty-five. In 1816 the church membership was nearly one thousand, a number probably unparalleled in the case of a rural church, in the history of the remainder of Rhode Island. Soon after the above date several branches were organized into separate churches. The report of the parish for 1900, after an existence of nearly two hundred years, shows three hundred and forty-one mem- bers, with two hundred and fourteen officers, teachers and pupils in the Sunday School and contributions of $2,827.15. From practical considerations, easily imagined, the Seventh Day order appears to thrive best in small places, where the population largely agrees in the practice of observing the last day of the week as the Sabbath. This early settling of a number of adherents of the Newport Seventh Day Church in Westerly seems to have given a permanent Sabbatarian complexion to Southwestern Rhode Island. In 1853 Dr. Jackson re- ported that there were ten hundred and fifty-five members of Seventh Day Baptist churches in the State, with six ministers. At the opening of the twentieth century there are seven active churches in Hopkinton, Richmond and Westerly, with eleven hundred and forty-seven mem- bers, of whom four hundred and seven belong to the vigorous Pawca- tuck Church, in the latter town. The original church at Newport, which retained its existence until 1850 or a little later, has since become extinct. The Seventh Day Baptists in Rhode Island, in common with
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their co-religionists in other parts of the country, sustain, with char- acteristic zeal and devotion, a mission in China. They have always been much interested, likewise, in education and assist in supporting high-class denominational schools and colleges in other sections.
A laudable effort and one for which Seventh Day people possess manifestly superior qualifications, by reason of agreement upon the day of the week to be kept as the Sabbath, was, some years since, started by this body for the Christianization of the Jews in New York city and later in Palestine, but unfortunately proved, at least tem- porarily, impracticable.
After the oversight of the general interests of the denomination had been exercised for nearly a hundred years by the First Hopkinton church, it passed from the control of that church, in 1802, into the hands of the Seventh-day Baptist General Conference, which will cele- brate its centennial year by meeting with that church in 1902. A pop- ular illustrated history of the Denomination is in course of prepara- tion.
The Free (formerly Free Will) Baptists .- From nearly the begin- ning of the Baptist Church in America, there have been some members who have opposed a number of the principal articles of the Calvinistic system of belief.
For a long time most of these brethren of Arminian proclivities lived in Rhode Island and its vicinity. It was among these that the Free Will Baptist Denomination had its rise, with its belief in General Redemption and its practice of Open Communion. In New Durham, N. H., the first separate church of this way of thinking was organized, in 1780, by Elder Benjamin Randall. It does not, however, appear that Mr. Randall was disfellowshiped by the regular church with which he was connected, or that he hesitated to call the body which he had created a Baptist church.
Thirty-two years later, in 1812, there came to Rhode Island, to pro- mulgate the principles of Elder Randall, a youthful preacher of great power named John Colby, who found a large number prepared, appar- ently through previous convictions, to welcome his mission. In Provi- dence, Smithfield, Glocester and Burrillville, he proclaimed the gospel of free salvation unto all men with immense energy and acceptable- ness. Hundreds and thousands flocked to hear him, and scores upon scores were converted as a result of his tireless labors.
The kindliness of feeling entertained towards this young evangelist by his brethren of the regular Baptist connection, notwithstanding differences of belief, is attested by the fact that, during a winter of
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sickness, he found a home for many months in the family of Dr. Ste- phen Gano, the esteemed pastor at that day of the First Baptist Church in Providence. In the last month of 1812 Mr. Colby organized in Burrillville the pioneer Free Will Baptist Church of Rhode Island, now known as the Pascoag Church. For a long period, until the death of its founder in 1817, this church, under the influence of his burning zeal, experienced what seemed like a perpetual revival. Other eminent gospel preachers came to take up the work of Elder Colby, the godly and able Joseph White being his principal successor. For about eight years the Burrillville church remained the only one of the new order in the State. Then, in 1820, one was organized in Smithfield (since conspicuous for its influence, under the name of the Greenville church), also under the pastoral care of Elder White.
A little later there was formed, by the instrumentality of Elder Ray Potter, a Free Will Baptist church in Pawtucket, now the largest outside of Providence. In 1821 there appeared, from Vermont and New Hampshire, Elder Reuben Allen, "a graduate from the anvil", who was destined for more than fifty years to be a man of mark in the church of Rhode Island. But, as an even more signal event, in 1828, in the village of Olneyville, there arose into notice a young, middle- aged man, gifted with more than ordinary power and mighty in the winning of souls to Christ, Martin Cheney. At first Mr. Cheney or- ganized in the village a small, independent church, which, by 1830, had gathered eighty-four members and was then received into the Free Will Baptist Denomination.
It is, without doubt, largely due to the sanctified genius and burning ardor of Elder Cheney, that the Olneyville church has for more than a half century been second to none of the order in the State, and has become the largest of all in membership, as well as that the whole Denomination has gained its present standing.
The "Roger Williams Church" in Providence was originally organ- ized in 1830, as a Six Principle Baptist church. In May, 1837, how- ever, it applied for admission and was received into the Free Will Baptist body and has since become the second in size and influence in the State. Few churches have enjoyed the services, among other faithful pastors, of such men as two of the ministers of this congrega- tion, the quaint and strong Elder James A. Mckenzie, and the saintly and scholarly Dr. George T. Day. In 1831 there were eight Free Will Baptist churches in Rhode Island. By 1841 they had increased to about seventeen.
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In 1880, at the period of the eentennial anniversary of the Denomi- nation, there were nineteen churches, with twenty-six preachers.
At the opening of the twentieth century there are twenty-nine churches in the State, with about thirty-seven ministers and thirty-six hundred and fifty-two members, and twenty-six Sunday Sehools with thirty-seven hundred and forty-seven members. The value of church property is $252,580.
In 1821 there was formed an association of the Free Will Baptist churches of the State, under the title of the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting. In 1857 the name was changed to that which the society now bears-the Rhode Island Free ( Will) Baptist Association. The terri- tory covered by this Association is not, however, exactly eonterminous with the State, seven of the churches, embraced in it, being situated in Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York. In most of the churches there are branches of the Free Baptist Young People's Union, with a total membership in the State of six hundred and eleven. There exists in the Denomination a lively interest in foreign missions, and its Rhode Island members also unite with the general chureh in sustaining an extensive and prosperous mission in southern Bengal, with more than a dozen stations, about twenty white missionaries and sixty-seven native helpers. In 1853, largely under the inspiration of Dr. Day, there began to be published in Providence an able Review, under the title of the Free Will Baptist Quarterly, the place of publication, after three years, being changed to Dover, N. H.
There arose in Rhode Island and Connecticut, during the "White- field Revival" of the later middle of the eighteenth century, a body of Separates, who called themselves Free Communion Baptists. To these the later organization of the Free Will Baptists offered a con- genial home, and by 1841 they had beeome mainly absorbed into that Denomination. About one-third of the existing Free Baptist ehurehes in Rhode Island were not originally sueh, some of them being, probably, of the Denomination called Christians, but, while of other names, find- ing themselves in harmony with the principles of the growing new body applied for admission to its fold. There ean, too, be no doubt that the diseussion aroused by the inception of the Free Will Baptist movement reaeted upon the other Baptists, who entered into it, and tended, even where they did not change their position, in some degree to modify their views. Indeed, it would seem to have been one of the Providential offiees of this Denomination, in addition to its ehief ser- viee of saving thousands of souls, to disseminate, also, a spirit of larger Christian liberality among other religious bodies.
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THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS IN RHODE ISLAND.
Their Arrival and Organization .- Almost exactly a score of years after Roger Williams had found, in 1636, a secure refuge beside the pleasant waters of Narragansett Bay and proclaimed that all persons who should submit themselves to the civil regulations of the Colony need fear no persecution on account of their religious belief, there began to appear within its borders members of a sect destined to exert a profound and salutary influence upon the community. In 1648 the founder of the Society of Friends in England, George Fox, had en- tered upon his career as a preacher. In 1654 the first General Meeting of the Society, of which any account has been preserved, was held in Swannington, Leicestershire. By 1656, to escape the persecution which had broken out in England, members of the Society had emi- grated to Massachusetts Bay to meet there, likewise, a reception which would have daunted less determined enthusiasts than they. For refusing to attend Puritan worship and to contribute to the support of its ministers they were subjected to various persecutions. On one pretense or another, if they were not, like the prophets of old, "stoned, and sawed asunder", they were yet scourged, imprisoned and muti- lated. At lengthi, in 1659, two members of the Society were publicly executed on Boston Common. A weakly old man, himself a member of the Puritan Church in Boston, was banished from the Colony for venturing to expostulate with the magistrates for these barbarities. Before the year of their arrival had closed, or certainly early in 1657, some of these unhappy people, hearing of the hospitable asylum be- yond the southwestern hills, began to flee from the tender mercies of the Puritans to the friendly "shelter for persons distressed for con- science", set up by the Apostle of Soul-Liberty in Rhode Island. The earliest Friends to emerge, famished and scarred, from the intervening wilderness, repaired to the island of Aquidneck. To this day, during the session of the New England Yearly Meeting in June, not only is there held on First Day a meeting for worship at Newport, where all the business meetings occur, but also one at Portsmouth, in the north- ern part of the island, as if in recognition of the fact that there the forefathers first found rest for their tired and bleeding feet. Later, bands of exiles of the order made homes for themselves in what is now known as Warwick, to give a Quaker complexion for two centuries to the western shore of Narragansett Bay. In Massachusetts these peaceable people had been treated as outlaws and subjected to every indignity. In Rhode Island they were allowed to follow their own
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convictions and speedily became useful and industrious citizens. Dur- ing 1657 Commissioners of Massachusetts and Plymouth Colonies, cha- grined that the persons they derisively styled Quakers had found refuge in Rhode Island, united in a remonstrance.
"We have experienced no difficulty with the people complained of," was the sturdy rejoinder of Roger Williams and the other authorities of the latter Colony.
While Massachusetts was vigorously executing her laws condemning to death any Quaker who should return to the Colony after banish- ment, Rhode Island stood sternly by the protest of her Assembly, "against the exercise of civil power over men's consciences", and finally appealed to Cromwell, then the Protector, that she might not be compelled to such a course "so long as human orders, in point of civility, are not corrupted or violated".
One of these exiles was Josiah Southwick, who fled to Rhode Island and raised there a family of ten children, of whom one daughter, Cas- sandra, married Jacob Mott, and became the maternal grandmother of Gen. Nathanael Greene.
In 1659 another Friend, Mary Dyer, was placed upon a horse by the Massachusetts magistrate and escorted to the borders of Rhode Island, where she remained some months. In May, 1660, however, like a moth flying back to the candle, which has already scorched its wings, Mary Dyer returned to "the bloody town of Boston", to protest against the unrighteous laws under which her companions had suffered death, and was herself in turn executed on the gallows, on the first day of June. Mrs. George Gardner of Newport, the mother of several chil- dren and a woman of good report, having become a Quaker, visited Weymouthı in Massachusetts, with an infant at her breast, and was arrested and taken before Governor Endicott, who ordered her to be flogged with ten stripes and kept in prison for two weeks. Thomas Harris, who had settled in Rhode Island, went to Boston with two other Quakers, where, for denouncing the cruelties practiced on his brethren, he was severely whipped and imprisoned, being for five days of his confinement deprived of food and water. Catherine Scott of Providence visited Boston and saw the right ears of three Friends cut off by the hangman and, for remonstrating against this barbarity, was herself shut up in prison for two months and publicly flogged, two of her children suffering along with her. "You are court, jury, judge, accusers, witnesses and all," exclaimed the Friend, Gov. William Coddington of Rhode Island, at this period, to the Puritan authorities of Massachusetts. Surely human nature would have had to be differ-
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ent from what it is, if Quakerism had not thriven in Rhode Island after such a baptism of blood.
There is a good deal of doubt as to the date of the earliest organiza- tion of the Friends in the Colony as a religious body, the records of the first meetings being said to have been destroyed in a burning dwelling house. Some writers maintain that a General Meeting was held at Newport on the 9th day of the fourth month (June), 1659. But, although this alleged fact lacks confirmation, there can be no doubt that, not long after that year, the earliest organization of Friends in America had been effected on the island of Rhode Island. Nor from that day to the present has a Yearly Meeting ever ceased to be held every June, in Newport, except when, from prudential considerations during the Revolutionary War, their sessions were, from 1777 to 1781 (inclusive), removed to Smithfield in the interior of the State.
The first positive intimation of the existence of the Rhode Island Yearly Meeting, so far as at present appears, is found in the Journal of John Burnyeat, a minister of the gospel, who traveled extensively in this country at that day, and relates his attendance at a "Yearly Meeting held on Rhode Island, in the fourth month, 1671." As he goes on to speak of it as a "General Meeting, once a year, for all Friends in New England", it is natural to conclude that it had been already for some years established. The initial entry in the books of the Rhode Island Monthly Meeting is dated "the 12th of 10th mo. 1676". Subsequent references in the minutes, however, to meetings formerly held, prove that it had been established considerably prior to the above date. Solid ground, indeed, is reached in 1672, for, in that year, no less a person than George Fox himself, the first promul- gator of the doctrines of the Society in England, visited Newport and attended the June meeting, of which he inserted in his journal the following description : We "arrived in Rhode Island the thirtieth of the third month, where we were gladly received by Friends. We went to Nicholas Easton's, who was the governor of the island, where we lay, being weary with traveling. On First day following, we had a large meeting, to which the deputy-governor and several of the justices came and were mightily affected with the truth. The week following, the Yearly Meeting of Friends for New England and other colonies adjacent was held on this island. . This meeting lasted six days. . For having no priests on the island, and no restric- tions to any particular way of worship, and the governor and deputy- governor daily frequenting meetings, it so encouraged the people that they flocked in from all parts of the island. These public
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