Samuel Slater immigrated to this country from England, bringing with him his work in two different fields of interest. From memory he reproduced the cotton machinery he used back home, and in so doing becoming the founder of the American cotton industry. In 1793 he helped to establish a factory in Pawtucket, Rhode Island under the name of Almy, Brown and Slater.
In those days before child labor laws, many of Slaters’ employees were young boys. When he saw how they spent their Sundays, the only day they weren’t working, he invited a group of them to his home to teach them how to read. In this, Slater started, on this day in 1799, the first Sunday school in this country. It followed the plan which he saw in England run by Robert Raikes.
Five years later David Benedict became the pastor the First Baptist Church, and under his leadership another Sunday school was begun, but with a different intention. When Mr. Slater heard of the new school, he placed his work under the auspices of the church. So what was actually started as a secular institution, became a sacred endeavor with the purpose of leading young souls to Christ.
Pastor Benedict authored several well-known books. In one of them, “Fifty Years Among the Baptists,” he wrote, “Sunday Schools… which are now in such successful operation with us… were wholly unknown in my early days.”
– Source: This Day in Baptist History, Thompson and Cummins