FISHERMAN'S NET PUBLICATIONS CATALOG 5f

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   |     |   |  SEVENTH DAY BAPTISTS IN AMERICA PRIOR TO 1802  |   |     |
   |     |   |                by Rev. L. A. Platts             |   |     |
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   |    [_____]                                               [_____]    |
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 The writer of this paper does not claim for his work the merit of
 originality. He has sought to bring together in a more connected form
 material the most of which has been before published in fragments. He
 acknowledges his indebtedness to The Seventh-day Baptist Memorial,
 published in 1852, 3, 4; James Bailey's History of the General
 Conference, 1866; The Seventh-day Baptist Quarterly, sundry
 articles published at different times in The Sabbath Recorder; A
 History of Washington County, R.I, found in the Library of Milton
 College, and to Mr. C. H. Greene, of Alfred, N. Y., for some
 unpublished data gathered by him from various records to which he has
 recently found access. The writer has verified some points, especially
 in the New Jersey history, by his own examination of original records.
 
 INTRODUCTION.

 The history of the first Seventh-day Baptists in America is a chapter
 of that general struggle for religious liberty and the rights of
 conscience which is so familiar to the student of our colonial times.
 It is the purpose of this paper to describe briefly the origin of this
 people in America, and trace their growth to the organization of the
 General Conference in 1802. This will be done, after this
 Introduction, under five heads, viz.: First Seventh-day Baptists in
 America; Church Extension; Doctrinal Standards; Religious Spirit and
 Life; Business and Public Life.

 The coming of Jesus Christ into the world was heralded by the song of
 "Peace on earth, good will toward men;" and the Bringer of the good
 tidings was called, with the utmost appropriateness, "The Prince of
 Peace." With great propriety it should be expected that the followers
 of the Prince, possessing his spirit, would bear the same good tidings
 to the dwellers of all lands, and in the final outcome, make an end of
 all bitterness and strife. Notwithstanding this reasonable expectancy,
 it is an acknowledged fact that, of all controversies waged by men,
 none have been characterized by greater vehemence and bitterness than
 those which have grown out of differences in religious faith and
 practice. It is not the province of this paper to inquire after the
 causes of this paradoxical phenomenon, but its bearing upon the origin
 of Seventh-day Baptists in America cannot be ignored. The particular
 phases of religious belief and practice for which men have striven and
 suffered have been many and varied; the processes of the struggle have
 been essentially the same. He who has dared to believe outside of the
 prescribed creed, or to act contrary to the established ritual, has
 first been ridiculed, then denounced, and finally persecuted until he
 has been compelled to leave the church which he has vainly hoped to
 reform and take his stand alone for a better way. If his cause has
 been worthy, there have gathered about him others of similar faith and
 experience, and thus has been born a movement which has become of
 world-wide importance. Thus when Martin Luther framed his immortal
 theses against the corruptions of the Church of Rome, it was his sole
 purpose to correct the abuses against which he raised his clarion
 voice. His separation from the church, which he loved, and the
 Protestant Reformation, with which his name will always be associated,
 formed no part of his original thought or plan. The great Protestant
 movement was the result of the efforts of the church to force him and
 his followers into unquestioning submission to the iron tyranny of the
 Papacy. The controversies of the next century, which arose within the
 Protestant church, resulted in a similar way in a separation of the
 Independents from the English Established Church, giving what is, more
 familiarly known as the Puritan movement. A little later, the English
 Baptists were compelled to become independent of the Independents, or
 stifle their convictions on the question of Bible baptism. The Baptist
 rule, applied to the Bible teaching concerning the Sabbath, made many
 of these Baptists Seventh-day Baptists: and these, too, soon found
 that all hope of reform within the church was hopeless, and were
 compelled to take their stand alone for conscience's sake.

 As the Seventh-day Baptist cause in America dates back almost to
 Plymouth Rock and the Mayflower, a brief statement of conditions at
 that time seems necessary to a proper understanding of its origin.

 During the first decade of the seventeenth century, the church of
 Independents at Scrooby, England, in order to escape the growing
 intolerance of the Established church, had emigrated, under the
 leadership of John Robinson, to Holland. Ten years of experience
 sufficed to convince them that the liberty of conscience which they
 sought was not to be found in that country. Face to face with failure
 if they remained, and almost certain of sorer trials should they
 return to England, they determined to try their fortunes in the new
 world. Accordingly, after many discouragements, and great suffering,
 the ever-famous Mayflower band of Pilgrims landed, December 20, 1620,
 at Plymouth in the Massachusetts Bay Colony; and began that struggle
 for life and the rights of conscience for which they had already
 suffered much, and were destined to suffer yet much more. Soon their
 numbers were increased by other emigrants from Holland and by larger
 numbers who fled from the cruel tyranny of Archbishop Laud in England.

 Strange as it may seem, these sufferers for conscience's sake began,
 almost from the beginning of their settlement, to formulate their
 doctrines and practices into laws which were quite as severe against
 those who dissented from them as were those of the mother church from
 which they had fled. To escape these severities colonists of the
 Baptist faith pressed their way through the unbroken forests to the
 New Haven Colony, now Connecticut. Here again they were driven from
 place to place until finally they took a more united stand on the
 island of Rhode Island, where now stands the city of Newport. Here was
 organized the first Baptist church in the colonies, which was destined
 to become the principal source of the great Baptist family of churches
 in the United States. These Rhode Island settlements, including
 Newport, Providence and Portsmouth, soon became the basis of the Rhode
 Island Colony, afterwards assuming the more pretentious name of the
 State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Foremost among the
 names of the men who carried these movements to success stands that of
 Roger Williams. Associated with him, and scarcely less efficient and
 influential in this pioneer work were Samuel Hubbard, the Clarkes -
 John, Thomas and Joseph - and a number of others, some of whose names
 have become household words in many Seventh-day Baptist homes to the
 present day.

 I. FIRST SEVENTH-DAY BAPTISTS.

 About the year 1664, Mr. Stephen Mumford, a member of the Bell Lane
 Seventh-day Baptist church, in London, came to Rhode Island, and
 finding no church of his faith, he affiliated with the Baptist church
 in Newport. During the next few years, a number of the members of that
 church embraced his views concerning the Sabbath and the perpetuity of
 the Ten Commandments. Prominent among these were Samuel and Tacy
 Hubbard and their daughter, Rachel; William Hiscox, Roger Baster,
 Nicholas Wild and wife and John Solmon and wife. Most of these had
 suffered with the Puritans for their faith and thus were trained for
 the trials through which they were soon to pass. It was not their
 intention to sever their connection with the Baptist church, for they
 thought surely a people who had suffered as the Baptists had done for
 Bible baptism would fellowship those who observed and defended the
 Bible Sabbath. They soon discovered, however, that, even in the church
 of Roger Williams, liberty of conscience meant liberty to believe and
 practice according to established dogmas and decrees. Elder John
 Clark, Mark Luker and Obadiah Holmes, who were leaders in the church,
 began to preach against the practice of the Sabbath-keepers and to
 denounce them as heretics and schismatics. Mr. Clark, especially,
 taught that the whole of the Ten Commandments was done away, and that,
 therefore, these Sabbath-keepers had denied Christ and gone back to
 the "beggarly elements." His associates, while not always agreeing
 with his doctrines concerning the law, were quite agreed in opposing
 the course of these Sabbath-keepers. The controversy became so sharp
 that four of the number- Nicholas Wild and wife and John Solmon and
 wife gave up the struggle and returned to First-day keeping. This was
 not only a serious loss to the little company, but it also
 complicated, in no small degree, their relations to the church. The
 tension of feeling, caused by the controversy, had already raised the
 question of the propriety of taking the communion with the church. Now
 that four of their number, who had been enlightened on the Sabbath
 truth and who had forsaken it, were still members and regular
 communicants in the church, the question of communing with them became
 more difficult. After much prayer they decided that they could not
 commune with these persons and consequently could not commune with the
 church. This brought the case to an open trial. The Sabbath-keepers
 were cited to appear before the church and show cause why they had
 denied Christ not only in going to Moses for the Law, but had again
 denied him in refusing the emblems of his body and blood. They
 joyfully appeared at the appointed time and place, expecting a fair
 hearing. But they soon found that the purpose of the meeting was not
 to hear the reasons for their faith and practice, but to point out to
 them their "error," and to compel them to abandon it. When they
 proposed that William Hiscox speak for the company, in which they were
 all agreed, the church persistently refused to hear him. After a long
 controversy, in which feelings, on both sides, grew more intense, the
 accused came to consider themselves the aggrieved rather than the
 offending party, and Tacy Hubbard , "gave forth the grounds" for their
 grievance in three pointed items:

 1. The apostasy of those four persons.

 2. That speech of Brother Holmes, "Woe to the world because
 of offenses;" in which discourse he said, "Offenses are such
 as arise from brethren of the church, such as deny Christ,
 and have turned to Moses in observing days, times, years,
 etc., and that it is better that a millstone were hanged
 about the neck of such, and they be cast into the sea."
 
 3. The dismal laying aside of the ten precepts together with
 the leading brethren denying of them at the meeting.

 In the discussions which followed, Elder Hiscox, and Tacy and Samuel
 Hubbard stoutly defended both the positions which they held and their
 right to hold them in precisely the same way as that in which they,
 together with those who are now opposing them, had defended the cause
 of the Baptists in the Puritan controversy. They also bore grateful
 testimony to the joy they found in keeping God's Holy Sabbath. Failing
 to obtain any relief from the strain of the situation, and becoming
 convinced that they could not keep the Sabbath and walk in fellowship
 with the church, the faithful five formally withdrew December 7, 1671.
 A little later, December 23, 1671, they, with Stephen Mumford and
 wife, seven in all, entered into solemn covenant with each other, as
 the First Seventh-day Baptist church of Newport - the first church of
 that faith on the American continent. In the year 1684, only thirteen
 years after the organization of the first church of Newport, Abel
 Noble came to America and purchased a large tract of land in Ducks
 County, Pennsylvania, about twenty-five miles north of Philadelphia,
 and about twenty-five or thirty miles west of Trenton, N. J. It has
 been generally believed that Mr. Noble was a Seventh-day Baptist
 preacher in England. Data more recently discovered lead to the
 conclusion that this was a mistake. What his church connection was is
 not clear; but soon after his settlement in Pennsylvania he began to
 travel somewhat extensively in various sections of New Jersey, where
 he met the Rev. Thomas Chillingworth, an eminent Baptist preacher, who
 was believed to have organized the first Baptist church in New Jersey
 at Piscataway, near New Brunswick. By him Mr. Noble was baptized. At
 this time there were large numbers of Quakers in the vicinity of
 Philadelphia both in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Among, these there
 arose a dissension concerning the sufficiency of the "Inner Light" and
 the value of the Scriptures as the rule of faith and practice. This
 resulted in a division, large numbers embracing substantially the
 Baptist doctrine under the leadership of George Keith. Abel Noble
 appears to have been prominent among these people, where he seems to
 have had great influence. Not far from this time, while on a tour
 through East New Jersey, Mr. Noble met the Rev. William Gillette,
 M.D., from Saybrook, or Milford, Conn., who was a Seventh-day Baptist,
 and through his teaching Mr. Noble accepted the Sabbath doctrine and
 returned to his home to proclaim it. Through his labors a considerable
 number of the Keithian Baptists were converted to the Sabbath,
 concerning whom more will be said in the next chapter of this paper.

 In the last decade of the seventeenth century, Edmund Dunham was a
 deacon and licensed preacher in the Baptist church at Piscataway, New
 Jersey. In 1702 he took occasion to reprove a Mr. Bonham for
 performing labor upon the First day of the week. Whereupon Mr. Bonham
 challenged him for the proof that it was sin to labor on that day.
 Whether Mr. Bonham was a Sabbath-keeper or not is not clear; but the
 challenge caused Mr. Dunham to make a thorough investigation of the
 whole subject which resulted in his conversion to the Sabbath. The
 whole community appears to have been deeply stirred over the matter
 and many people betook themselves to a prayerful study of the
 Scriptures, and a number of persons were led to acknowledge the claims
 of the Sabbath. Like the little band at Newport, little more than a
 generation before, it was not the intention of these brethren to
 separate themselves from the Baptist church. But the agitation became
 so strong and the feeling on both sides so intense that the only hope
 of peace and the enjoyment of freedom of speech and practice lay in
 their separation and the organization of a Seventh-day Baptist church.
 This was accomplished in the summer of 1705 under the name of the
 First Seventh-day Baptist Church of Piscataway, New Jersey. It was
 composed of 17 members. From these three centers - Newport,
 Philadelphia and Piscataway, the truth of the Sabbath, following the
 tides of emigration westward, moved forward in three distinct lines.

 11. CHURCH EXTENSION.

 From the organization of the first church at Newport in 1671 to the
 organization of the Seventh-day Baptist General Conference in 1802,
 the period covered by this paper, was 131 years. They were eventful
 years in the history of the country - years of consecrated Christian
 living, of clear thinking and of earliest defence and propagation of
 religious truth, as well as years of hard fought battles for civil and
 political liberty. The pioneer Seventh-day Baptists were men and women
 of marked character. They bore well their part in all these great
 movements.

 The little church at Newport grew, both by the coming of Seventh-day
 Baptists from England and by frequent conversions to the Sabbath in
 the colony; but whether by one method or the other, the new accessions
 were accessions of real strength.

 The first pastor was William Hiscox, one of the first Sabbath converts
 under the teaching of Stephen Mumford. He was a man of great ability
 and sterling integrity. He was chosen by the Baptist church in Newport
 to defend the Baptist faith in an open discussion with the Puritans in
 Boston, after he had become widely known as a Seventh-day Baptist and
 the pastor of a church of that faith. As was to have been expected the
 church grew rapidly under his able and faithful ministry. A
 considerable number having settled in the town of Misquamicutt,
 afterward called Westerly, on the main land, meetings were held among
 them as well as upon the island. Mr. Hiscox was assisted in his labors
 during the latter part of his pastorate by Elder William Gibson, who
 was a Seventh-day Baptist preacher in London, England, before coming
 to America. On the death of Elder Hiscox, in 1704, after a fruitful
 pastorate of 33 years, Elder Gibson became the pastor in full charge,
 and continued in the office for the next 13 years. In the early part
 of his pastorate, 1708, a church on the main land was organized. At
 first this church was known as the Seventh-day Baptist church of
 Westerly; but years afterwards, when the township was divided and the
 northwestern part became the town of Hopkinton, the church took the
 name of the First Seventh-day Baptist Church of Christ in Hopkinton,
 the name by, which it is still known. This step was not taken,
 however, without much thought and earnest prayer, for, though the
 number of those residing in Westerly was rapidly outgrowing the number
 remaining in Newport, and, although the advantage of having a church
 with the ordinances of the gospel in their midst was apparent to all,
 the common experiences and labors of those who had stood together for
 a generation, had formed ties too strong to be easily severed. It was
 not until some plan for joint meetings of the two churches, and
 apparently for the interchange of ministerial labor had been made that
 the Newport brethren consented to the division. As early, as 1696,
 twelve years before the organization of the church in Westerly, an
 Annual Meeting was appointed to be held at Newport, at which it was
 expected that all the brethren from the mainland, as well as those
 upon the island, should be present. This annual meeting was continued
 through this entire period and may be regarded as the nucleus around
 which the General Conference was finally gathered. As the number of
 members grew and the difficulty of getting a general attendance at
 Newport increased, the sessions began to be held in Westerly. These
 meetings were occasions of great spiritual refreshing. The preaching
 was with much fervor, strengthening and encouraging the people of God,
 awakening the careless, and often leading multitudes to the foot of
 the cross for peace and pardon. In the regular work of the two
 churches although each had its own pastor, there appears to have been
 much preaching and pastoral work performed interchangeably, or in
 co-operation. Eld. Gibson., the second pastor of the Newport church,
 resided in Westerly both while assistant to Eld. Hiscox and after he
 became his successor. The third of the Newport pastors was Joseph
 Crandall, who served the church continuously for 37 years. During this
 long period sixty persons were added to the church by baptism. He was
 followed by John Maxson, who served the church 24 years, under whose
 labors nearly as many more were added to the church.

 The next and last pastorate of this period was that of Wm. Bliss,
 which extended from 1779 to 1808, six years beyond the organization of
 the General Conference. During this pastorate ninety-five were added
 to the church. While the figures can not be accurately given, it is
 probable that not less than 250 persons, during these years, were
 added to the Newport church, although at the organization of the
 Conference the church reported 80 members. Making a liberal allowance
 for losses by death and some falling away from the faith, there must
 have been a large number who had moved to other localities. Without
 doubt, the larger part of these united with the church at Westerly,
 which, meanwhile, had grown to a membership of more than 600, living
 in Western Rhode Island, Eastern Connecticut and the eastern end of
 Long Island. The scattered condition of the church made the labors of
 the pastor arduous, so that for much of the time, men were called by
 the church to the ministry and ordained as assistant pastors, and not
 infrequently deacons were given authority to administer the ordinances
 as occasion might require. On account of this joint pastorship, it is
 difficult to give, with accuracy, the succession of pastors of the
 Westerly church. Among them we find the names of John Maxson, Sen.,
 John Maxson, Jr., Thos. Hiscox, Thos. Clarke, Joshua Clarke, John
 Burdick, and others.

 Before the organization of the Conference, settlements had been
 extended to New London, Conn., where a church was organized in 1784;
 to the Little Hoosic Valley, in Rensselaer County, New York, where a
 church was organized in 1780, which took the name of Hoosic, later
 Petersburg, and now Berlin and to Brookfield, in Madison County, New
 York, where the First Seventh-day Baptist church of Brookfield was
 organized in 1797. All of these churches continue until the present
 time. Besides these, churches were organized along this route of
 emigration, which have long since ceased to exist, but some of which
 contributed largely to the strength and growth of our people in other
 localities. Chief among these were Burlington, Conn., 1780, Bristol,
 Conn., sometimes called Farmington, 1790, and Oyster Pond, L. I.,
 about 1790. Besides these organized churches, there were small groups
 of Sabbath-keepers, or families of lone Sabbath-keepers, all along
 this line. From Oyster Pond, Long Island, from Saybrook, Conn., where
 lived the Gillette family, and from Rhode Island, originated the
 church in Monmouth County, New Jersey, sometimes called the church of
 Squam. These nine churches, the result of the New England movement,
 were all in active existence at the time of the organization of the
 Conference and numbered, in all, about 1,200 members. The church last
 named had a short and somewhat peculiar history. It was organized in
 1745, and about 1790, under the lead of its third pastor, the Rev.
 Jacob Davis, it removed bodily to Woodbridgetown, Fayette County,
 Pennsylvania, where a church was organized which reported to the
 Conference as late as 1853. The pastor, and a few others, soon after
 the settlement at Woodbridgetown, resumed the line of emigration,
 until they reached New Salem, Virginia, now Salem, West Virginia.
 Three or four years later than this, Eld. Davis returned to
 Woodbridgetown on a missionary visit, where he was taken sick and
 died. His descendants, in large numbers, continue till the present
 time, and form a considerable part of the Sabbath-keepers in West
 Virginia, and elsewhere. It is said that there has not been a
 generation of this family without a representation in the ministry of
 the Seventh-day Baptist church from Wm. Davis, who came to this
 country in 1682, to the present time, - a period of 221 years, the
 writer of this paper being one of the number. The venerable Samuel D.
 Davis of Jane Lew, West Virginia, is a grandson of Eld. Jacob Davis,
 above mentioned.

 The Seventh-day Baptist movement begun by Abel Noble among the
 Keithian Quaker Baptists, near Philadelphia, had a rapid development.
 Almost within the first quarter of the 18th century there had sprung
 up four or five churches of considerable size among these people.
 Comparatively little is known of them now, but we have the names of
 French Creek Pennepek, Upper Providence, Nottingham, and Newtown. We
 also have the names of several men who preached to the people of these
 churches. Foremost among these stands the name of Abel Noble, though
 no record has been found which would indicate that he was ever a
 member of any of the churches. After him is Enoch David, some of whose
 descendants are still living among our people, and then follow Thomas
 Martin, William and Philip Davis, Lewis Williams, Thomas Rutter - and
 possibly some others, concerning whom little is known, except that
 they were preachers of the Gospel in these churches. While each church
 had its own place of meeting and maintained its own appointments for
 worship, they had a Yearly Meeting, which all were expected to attend.
 As the churches were located in adjoining counties, this was not
 difficult. While this Yearly Meeting was sometimes held with one
 church and sometimes with another, Newtown appears to have been the
 principal place of assembly, which leads to the conclusion that this
 was regarded as one of the stronger churches. To a Yearly Meeting held
 at French Creek, in 1745. the church at Piscataway, New Jersey, sent
 Jonathan Dunham for ordination. This service was performed by Elder
 Lewis Williams and Abel Noble.

 One of these churches, probably Nottingham, was located close to the
 line between Pennsylvania and Maryland, and some of its members lived
 in Cecil County in the latter named state. Among these were several
 families of Bonds who soon moved on through Maryland and Delaware, and
 finally settled on Lost Creek, in Virginia, thus forming a second
 center from which has sprung another large part of the Seventh-day
 Baptist family in West Virginia of the present day, and thence spread
 to various other points throughout the denomination. Other families
 from these churches took a line of emigration still further southward
 and formed settlements and organized churches in Georgia and South
 Carolina. These little settlements were short lived, and the active
 life of the group near Philadelphia was limited to this period, the
 only visible, permanent result of the movement being the portion which
 was transplanted into the Lost Creek region. A burying ground near
 Newtown still marks the site of that church.

 The Piscataway movement, though not as wide spread as the New England
 movement, was more permanent than that just described. At the
 organization of the church in 1705, its founder, Edmund Dunham, was
 chosen pastor, and was sent to Newport for ordination. The Yearly
 Meeting convened that year in Westerly, and there Mr. Dunham was
 ordained by Eld. Gibson, the Newport pastor. The members of this
 church were widely scattered so that the pastor, in the performance of
 his duties, had to make long journeys, which he did either on foot or
 on horseback, covering the country for a distance of thirty or forty
 miles. Though the principal place of meeting was at Piscataway,
 regular meetings were also held in Hopewell Township, and at Trenton;
 meetings were also held at numerous other places, but less statedly
 than at the three principal points just mentioned. Eld. Dunham
 performed these labors for a period of 29 years, during which time the
 church grew to over 70 members. His son, Jonathan Dunham, succeeded
 him, serving the church for eleven years as a licensed preacher,
 rather than as pastor, finally accepting ordination, which took place
 at the Yearly Meeting at French Creek, in Pennsylvania, as already
 stated. After his ordination, he continued to serve the church until
 his death in 1777, a period of 32 years, making a continuous service
 of 43 years. As will be seen by the date above given, Eld. Dunham died
 in the early part of the Revolutionary War. New Jersey forming the
 coast line between Eastern New York and Eastern Pennsylvania, was
 naturally the storm center of that great contest; and the town of
 Piscataway, lying in the direct route between the port of New York and
 the port of Philadelphia, by way of Bordentown and Trenton, the church
 at Piscataway was exposed to the manifold hardships of such a struggle
 - the desolations of war. Many of its able-bodied men, as privates or
 officers, joined the patriot army: others gathered together their live
 stock, and, taking such of their household effects as they could
 conveniently carry, with their families, sought greater safety in the
 mountains lying a few miles to the north of them; and still others,
 who could not get away or would not go, remained to give such aid as
 they could, from their fields or from their scanty stores, to the
 suffering patriots, or to see their possessions wasted by the British
 soldiery, as the varying fortunes of war might determine. Under these
 distressing conditions, the church was sadly broken up. There was no
 pastor to hold the scattered remnants together, and for a number of
 years, Sabbath meetings were held only at irregular intervals. After
 the successful issue of the great struggle the survivors returned from
 the army, or from their temporary homes in the mountains, and began to
 resume their peaceful vocations in homes desolated by war. Under these
 conditions, Eld. Nathan Rogers came from New London (Waterford).
 Connecticut, and took the pastoral care of the scattered flock in
 1786, and during the next eleven years, 65 persons were added to the
 church. He was followed in 1797 by Eld. Henry McLafferty, who was
 still the pastor when the General Conference was organized in 1802.

 In the decade between 1730 and 1740, families from different points
 within the boundaries of the Piscataway church, made settlements on
 the Cohansey Creek, in Cumberland County, New Jersey, about 40 miles
 south from Philadelphia. These were joined by others from Shrewsbury,
 and in 1737 they were constituted a church in sister relation. The
 first pastor was Eld. Jonathan Davis, who, together with several
 others of that name, was a descendant of a family of Davises, who came
 to this country from Glamorganshire, Wales, about 1649, and settled
 somewhere in New Jersey. Subsequently they lived on Long Island, then
 near Trenton, N. J.; thence they removed to Cohansey. Somewhere,
 probably in the course of this itinerary, they came in contact with
 Sabbath-keepers, and most of them appear to have embraced the Sabbath.
 It is believed that Eld. William Gillette, M. D., who was a
 Sabbath-keeping French Hugenot refugee, was the man through whose
 influence this was brought about. Elder Davis served the church
 faithfully and acceptably for 32 years, during which time the church
 grew to several times its original numbers. The pastor, at the end of
 this period, was Eld. Nathan Avers, when the church numbered go
 members. Within the next ten years, in 1811, a number of the members
 of this church, living principally in Salem County, north-west from
 the Cohansey settlement, were organized into the church known as the
 Seventh-day Baptist church of Marlboro; and in 1838, fifty-one
 members, principally of the Piscataway church, were duly organized as
 the Seventh-day Baptist church of Plainfield, in Union County. Thus
 this movement resulted eventually in four- churches in New Jersey,
 which with subsequent accessions, have continued strong and active to
 the present day.

 Besides those who have remained to maintain the life and usefulness of
 these churches, members have gone out from them to find a place of
 usefulness and honor in almost every Seventh-day Baptist church of the
 central and northern streams of emigration from the Atlantic to the
 Pacific coasts.

 Thus from these original centers, Newport, Rhode Island; Philadelphia,
 Pennsylvania; and Piscataway, New Jersey, streams of Seventh-day
 Baptist emigration flowed westward through Connecticut into New York
 State, through Long Island, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, into
 Virginia, and southwestward into the Carolinas and Georgia, until in
 1802, there were not less than 20 churches and settlements of
 Sabbath-keepers, in nine or ten colonies or states, and numbering
 about 2,000 members. Eight of these churches, being the larger ones,
 numbering between 1,100 and 1,200 members reported to the General
 Conference at its first anniversary in 1803.

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