William Screven emigrated to Boston from England about the year 1668. There he became a successful merchant. He also became a Baptist, but at what point we do not know. When he tried to organize a Baptist church in Boston he was informed that it would be in violation of the laws of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, so he moved to Kittery in the Province of Maine in order to scripturally worship and serve the Lord. After Massachusetts acquired the area of Maine, the government renewed its persecution of this good man. He was arrested and charged with making blasphemous speeches against the “holy order of pedobaptism” (apparently their words).
On this day (April 12) in 1682 he was brought before the court at York and his sentence was read. He was charged with “blasphemy” and “delinquency” for condemning infant baptism and for not attending the state-sanctioned church. He was ordered to pay £10 and to cease any private exercise of religion at his own house or elsewhere. Of course, when released, Screven continued to worship the Lord as he understood the Bible to teach. When he organized a church in Kittery out of a Baptist church in Massachusetts, the government’s persecution intensified.
Eventually growing weary of the official hatred, Elder Screven and the assembly which he shepherded took ship and sailed for the Carolinas. They settled on the Cooper River not far from Charleston. In 1693 after meeting a few recent Baptist arrivals from the west of England, a new church was established out of the seeds of the Kittery church. This was the first Baptist church in the South.
For more than a century after the departure of Bro. Screven’s congregation there was no Baptist witness in Maine. Persecution withheld the blessing of the gospel of free grace in that place. But at the same time, it was that persecution which first sent the gospel to Carolina.
