46 BAPTIST, The first — church in America, Sylvester Hassell From the most recent and thorough investigation, it is believed that Dr. John Clark (a physician and eleven other persons formed, at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1638, the first Baptist Church in American; Clark resigning the proposed care of the church in 1651, in order to return to England, was succeeded by Obadiah Holmes. The pastors and members of this oldest Baptist Church in America remained strongly Calvinistic or predestinarian until about the year 1820.
In 1636 the town, and in 1639 the Baptist Church, of Providence, Rhode Island, were founded by Roger Williams (1599-1683). He was a Welshman by birth, an Episcopalian by training, and had been a Congregationalist by choice, and he was a graduate of the University of Cambridge. He came to Massachusetts in 1631, and was for a few years assistant minister of the Congregational Church at Salem; but, denying the right of the magistrates to punish offenses of a purely religious character, he was banished, and, leaving his wife and children at Salem, he fled, in the depth of winter, to the Narragansett Indians, and, in gratitude to God for his preservation during fourteen weeks of bitter wilderness wandering, he called the town that he founded Providence, and he made it a shelter for persons distressed for the sake of conscience.
He established the colony of Rhode Island upon principles of entire religious liberty— principles which have since been adopted in all the States of the American Union, but upon which no State before Rhode Island had ever been founded.
In March, 1639, Roger Williams, Ezekiel Holliman and ten others constituted the Baptist Church at Providence. Holliman baptized Williams, and then Williams immersed Holliman and the others. Four months afterwards, doubting the validity of this procedure, Williams withdrew from the church, and seems never again to have united with any religious organization, but remained a Seeker, seeking but never finding a church of pure apostolic faith and practice.
For one hundred and thirty years the ministers of the Providence Church were natives, bred on the spot, generally advanced in years, worked for their daily bread, and had no special training.” For a long time it was thought that this church was the first Baptist organization in America; but the best evidence seems to show that the Newport Church was the first.
John Miles formed a Baptist Church at Swansea in Wales in 1649; and removing, with a few of his members and a copy of the old church records, to America, he founded in 1663 the first Baptist Church in Massachusetts at Swansea or Swanzy.” (Hassell’s History pg 526)
C. H. Cayce: The first Baptist Church constituted in America was at Newport, Rhode Island, in 1638, by Dr. John Clark (a physician) and eleven other persons. The pastors and members of this church were Predestinarian Baptists—like the Primitive Baptists are now— until about the year 1820.
The Welch Tract Church, near Newark, Newcastle county, Delaware, is the oldest Primitive (or Old School) Baptist Church in the United States. It was constituted in the spring of 1701, by sixteen Baptists, in South Wales. They moved, as a church, to the United States, and first settled near Philadelphia, where they remained about a year and a half. Then they purchased a tract of land where the church is now located. They moved there in 1703.
The Philadelphia Association was formed in 1707; the Charleston in 1751; the Sandy Creek in 1758; the Kehukee in 1765. The Kehukee Association stands today upon the ancient order of the gospel, just as they did when constituted. The Primitive Baptist, April 17, 1906.