December 15

Leonard Verduin is the author of “The Reformers and their Step Children.”  It is a book to which I have referred many times over the years.  Verduin was not a Baptist but a part of the Christian Reformed Denomination, and yet his honest histories strengthen the...

December 8

Morgan John Rhees was born on this day in 1760 in Glamorganshire, Wales. The Lord became his Saviour when he was quite young, and when the Lord called him into His ministry, he made preparations by attending the Bristol Baptist College. After his graduation, he became...

December 1

John Mason Peck and his wife left their home in the East to travel into the wilderness of the American Midwest.  On his day in 1817, after 129 days of travel by wagon, on foot and by boat, they reached St. Louis, Missouri.  The trip had taken its toll on the future...

November 24

Many of God’s greatest preachers and pastors were supported by unnamed or unsung women – their patient wives. Susanna Mason was born in Rehoboth, Massachusetts, in about 1725.  Her family had been Baptists for several generations, going back to the old country. ...

November 17

On this day in 1843 Joseph G. Binney and his wife Juliette set sail from America to give their lives for the salvation of souls in Burma. The life of a “missionary wife” was severe, and in time Mrs. Binney’s health began to fail. Anticipating her departure to Heaven,...

Like our subject from last week, William Cate was born and raised in East Tennessee, apparently in Sevier County. On this day in 1837, he and his wife, after their public professions of faith in Christ, were immersed and joined the local Baptist church.  Three years...

December 3

Richard M. Miller is not a name you’ll find in William Cathcart’s 1881 book, “The Baptist Encyclopedia.” Most likely, it is because he didn’t do anything to draw attention to himself. Brother Miller was born on this day in 1815 south of Knoxville, Tennessee, in Sevier...

October 27 in Baptist History

History tells us that Thomas Goold was used of the Lord to establish the first Baptist church in Boston. It also says that Brother Goold died on this day in 1675. That little body of believers was persecuted by the colonial government and its officially-recognized...

October 20

William Ward was born on this day in 1769.  In the spring of 1793, his cart got in front of his horse, so to speak.  Ward, who was living in Derby at that time, had become a printer.  One day William Carey providentially happened to come up beside the young man...

October 13

James Garnett was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, in 1792, but when he was a child the family moved to Kentucky. It was there he was born again, during his nineteenth year, and there he was baptized. When the Bullettsburg Baptist Church recognized God’s spiritual...

October 6

This is a somewhat backhanded piece of Baptist history, as you will see. Eugenio Kincaid was born into a Presbyterian home in Wetherfield, Connecticut, but in his youth the family moved to Pennsylvania. There, under the preaching of a Baptist evangelist, the young man...

September 22

Fredrick Rymker was born in Stige, Denmark, on this day in 1819.  He learned the trade of shoemaking, but at the age of twenty he went to sea.  When an accident struck him down, he was fitted with a wooden leg, and from then on looked like the proverbial peg-leg...

September 15

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...

September 8

In the struggle for religious liberty in this country the following letter was submitted to the General Assembly of Connecticut: “To the Honourable Genl Assembly of ye Colony of Connecticut, to be convened at New Haven on ye second Thursday of October next. The humble...

September 1

Sarah Hall was born in 1803.  As a teenager she came under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and was born again.   Soon she joined the First Baptist Church of Salem Massachusetts, and immediately became obsessed with the spiritual needs of others.  Providentially...