History of Swansea, Massachusetts, 1667-1917; - citizen hylbom blog

THE
CHURCHES
First Baptist Church
First Baptist Church in Massachusetts was constituted
at Rehoboth, Bristol County, in the year 1663, in
the house of John Butterworth. The names of its
constituent members were John Myles, pastor; James Brown,
Nicholas Tanner, Joseph Carpenter, John Butterworth, Eldad
Kingsley, and Benjamin Alby.
As this is the first Baptist Church formed in this State,
and as its origin was pecuKar, had the events of its early
history been preserved, it would have been a matter of unusual
interest to the Baptists of the present time. Hitherto churches
of this order had been kept out of every New England colony
except Rhode Island. An attempt was made to form one in
1639 in the town of Weymouth, but it was defeated by the
magistrates, and those concerned in it were scattered. After
this no further effort seems to have been made for more than
twenty years.
The history of this church possesses more than a local and
temporary interest, as it relates to the religious and secular
interests of all this region of country for a period of more than
two centuries. Indeed, its history, with that of some of its
pastors, connects it with some of the most important movements
in the early annals of these colonies. Several of the
contiguous towns, including Warren and Barrington, now in
Rhode Island, and Somerset in this State, formed a part of
Swansea, and the people were generally interested in the
church, many of them as members, and most of them as
adherents and coadjutors. Liberal measures were provided
for the education of the young, and for the accommodation of
all the people with the means of religious instruction and
worship. Among the most active of the men thus employed
was Mr. Myles and Capt. Thomas Willett, the latter, who at
a later period of life became the first English mayor of New
York on its cession from the Dutch. Happy would it have
been for the social, educational, and moral prosperity of the
town of Swansea if the same principles could have been carried
to their maturity which were so nobly acted on in the first
period of its history.
It will be seen that the church was, in a manner, the