The work of planting Baptist churches in America’s Midwest was difficult. That was due in part to the cosmopolitan makeup of the settlers and the nature of the terrain along the lakes. Michigan, for example, was described by America’s surveyor-general as low and swampy, unfit for vegetation of any kind. This did little to encourage the English-speaking people of New England to move to the area. As late as 1834, Detroit had a population of only about 5,000 most of which came from Germany, France and Scandinavia, and many of them were highly resistant to the gospel.
On this day in 1827 Henry Davis, the city’s first Baptist missionary, arrived in Detroit. He began going door to door throughout the community teaching God’s word and trying to be as friendly and useful to his neighbors as possible. Historian Albert Finn later described an event which took place later that October: “The Detroit River has never witnessed a more impressive scene than that which took place on its banks… when Elder Henry Davis, the young and fiery shepherd of the Baptist believers in Detroit, baptized a group of converts in the water of the strait to which our city owes its name. A picturesque and colorful group of fine ladies, fur traders, and Indians, as well as the sober, first citizens, stood reverently by.” Tragically, within a year, sickness seized the good pastor, and his work came to an end. It was about five years later that Elder Robert Trumbull came to fill the void left by Brother Davis.
