A Sketch of Early Primitive Baptist History in New York
Baptist Beginnings in New York
Some of the first Baptist churches gathered in what is now the great State of New York included, Fishkill (1745 or earlier), Oyster Bay (about 1748), North-Town (1751), Pawlingstown (1757), First Church of New York City (1762), Warwick (1764), 1st Stephentown (1768), and Bethel (1770). John Gano, Samuel Waldo, a Mr. Holstead, Noah Hammond, James Benedict, and others are named among the earliest ministers in this State.
The first church in New York City originated in the following manner: About the year 1745 Mr. Jeremiah Dodge a member of Mr. Holstead's church at Fishkill, settled in New York, and opened a prayer, reading, and singing meeting at his own house. He invited Mr. John Pine, an unordained preacher in the church of Fishkill, to come and preach. They met in several places, and increased in number, until finally being constituted into a church on June 19, 1762, by Elders Benjamin Miller and John Gano. They joined the Philadelphia Association the same year. Mr. John Gano became pastor of the church in 1762, and continued in that relation for about twenty-six years, when he removed to Kentucky. During that time about 300 persons were received by baptism. A meeting house was erected in 1760, which was replaced by a much larger structure in 1801, on Gold-Street. Ministers who were raised up in this church included Thomas Ustick, Isaac Skillman, Stephen Gano, Thomas Montanye, Cornelius P. Wyckoff, James Bruce, and John Seger.
Several hundred Baptist churches were organized prior to the division over the modern mission system, which we presume were sound in the faith originally, but were led into error, and are therefore omitted from this brief history. David Benedict, a Missionary Baptist historian, in writing about New York, in his General History of the Baptists, in 1848, commented as follows: "We must bear in mind that all were then set down as Arminians, who did not come up to the highest point of hyper-Calvinism. Our old ministers in this region half a century since, would have denounced as unsound in the faith, the great mass of our community of the present day, both in Europe and America, Fuller and Hall among the rest."
We have documented the division caused by the arminian mission system, in New York, and compiled a detailed record of councils and official actions taken by the churches at the time. Due to the gross misrepresentation of the strength of the Old School Baptists in their opposition to the new measures, we now propose to list the names of at least a hundred churches in New York state which our research has obtained thus far, in alphabetical order:
Albany & Troy, Albion, Alexander, Andes, Beaverkill, Betheseda, Beulah, Binghamton, Blenheim, Bovina, Brookfield, Burdett, Caroline, Cuyuga Lake, Chemung, Clovesville, Colchester, Cortlandville, Darien, Delphi, Delphia, Durham, Ebenezer (NYC), Ebenezer (Utica), Ebenezer (Lowville), Ellicottville, Elmira, Emmaus, Enfield, First Berlin, First Clyde and Galen, First Hector, First Schoharie, Friendship, Gilboa, Granby, Greenfield, Hamburgh, Harpersfield, Hunter, Hurley, Independence, Jefferson, Lakeville, Lexington, Liberty, May's Mill, Melvin Hill, Middleburgh, Middletown & Andes, Middletown & Roxbury/&Halcott/Halcott, Middletown & Walkill, Middletown, Mt. Carmel, Mt. Zion, Naples, New Vernon, Olive, Olive & Hurley, Orange, Otego, Palermo, Phelps, Pine-Hill Clove, Pleasant Valley, Prattsburg, Ramapo, Rensselaerville & Berne, Riker's Hollow, Roxbury (First), Roxbury (Second), Salem, Schoharie, Scio, Second Hector, Second Sloanville, Second Troy, Second Westmoreland, Sodus, South Dansville, South Westerlo, Southold, Spring Water, Third Hector, Thompsontown, Tremper Clove, Trenton, Tyrone, Vienna, Viola, Virgil Corners, Wales Hollow, Walkill, Warwick, Waterloo,Waverly, West Colesville, West Turin, Westmoreland, Wilton, and Windsor.
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