A History of the Baptists in the Southern States East of the Mississippi

p. 9ABOUT the year 1682 a body of respectable and well-to-do immigrants left their homes in the southwestern portion of England, and under the lead of Humphrey Blake, a brother of the famous British admiral, set sail for America. Landing upon the Carolina coast near the present site of Charleston, they proceeded a short distance up Cooper River and built their temporary homes upon its western bank. The respectability of these immigrants led so competent an authority as Gra-hame, in his "Colonial History of the United States," to denominate them a " most valuable addition " to the Carolina population. From the same source we learn that Mr. Blake so generously shared in the convictions of the dissenters, whose leader he became, that he " devoted his fortune " to the furtherance of the scheme to emigrate to America in order that they might escape threatened persecution, the terrors of which were not a little enhanced by the apprehended accession of the Duke of York to the throne.

p. 10Among the colonists who landed near Charleston was Joseph Blake, a nephew of the leader of the party, who though not a Baptist, was nevertheless in profound sympathy with the denomination in its views respecting religious freedom. His wife, Lady Blake, was a most earnest Baptist, as was also her mother, Lady Axtell. Joseph Blake was destined to play a conspicuous part in the future history of the province. Already the friend and trustee of Lord Berkeley, one of the lords-proprietors of the province, he was afterward chosen, together with Paul Grimball, a Baptist, and five others, to revise "The Fundamental Constitution " originally framed by the celebrated John Locke. The conduct of Mr. Blake, from the beginning to the close of his career as governor of the province, showed that he was an uncompromising advocate of religious freedom.

About the time of the occurrence of the events just noted, AVilliam Screven fled from Kittery, Maine, with a party of persecuted folk and joined the colony upon Cooper River. Indications favor the presumption that it was the result of a mutual understanding that these harmonious bodies of colonists were thus brought together. One of the most significant facts is that the locality of the combined colonists was named Somerton. In his history of the English Baptists, Ivimey mentions the congregation at Somerton, in Somersetshire, England, as co-operating with other congregations, in 1656, in p. 11publishing a Confession of Faith. This Confession was signed by twenty-five persons, among whom was William Screven, of Somerton. Twenty-five years later we find William Screven at Kittery, on the Piscataqua River, in Maine, engaged in holding religious meetings in his own house. There is little doubt of the identity of the William Screven of Old England with that of New England.

p. 11Subjected to a vigorous persecution, Mr. Screven left New England for the South and reached Charleston about the close of 1682. To a constitution and subscription of a churclTcovenant adopted at Kittery, September 25, 1682, the First Church of Charleston traces its origin. The earliest available records indicate that the settlement of the colony under Screven at Charleston, was regarded as being only a transfer of the seat of worship of the persecuted flock which had been gathered on the Piscataqua. In a historical sketch of the First Church of Charleston, which was inserted in the original minute book of the Charleston Association, it is particularly stated that most of the members came with William Screven from the Piscataqua region. These Baptists on Cooper River, derived partly from England and partly from Maine, were the first to settle in the South. The strong probability is that while they observed social worship in some form at Somerton, their seasons of stated worship were held Sunday after Sunday in Charleston.

Every Sunday morning the families of the Som-p. 12erton settlement would descend the river in their boats, following the outgoing tide, spend a large portion of the day worshiping in Charleston, and in the afternoon row leisurely back up the river to their homes. The time for beginning worship in the morning was made to depend upon the capricious subsidence of the tide, and it was as liable to take place at high noon as at ten o'clock. Prior to the erection of a meeting-house in Charleston, worship was held "at the house of one William Chapman on King Street. " There is little doubt that the Baptists were the first to erect a church edifice in Charleston.

Naturally enough William Screven became the pastor of the original Baptist church established by the combined colonists at Somerton and thereabouts. He served in this capacity until 1706, when he retired to the head of Winyaw Bay, purchased land and built a home where Georgetown now is, and though quite an old man, continued to labor as a missionary in the destitute settlements about him. Upon the retirement of Mr. Screven from the pastorate of the church, a preacher from England, named White, was called to succeed him. Mr. White's pastoral career at Charleston was a brief one, for he soon died. In their perplexity, the membership turned again to their venerable ex-pastor for a supply. About the same time Mr. Screven received a call from the First Church of Boston, to which he made reply, "Our minister p. 13that came from England is dead, and I can by no means be spared." In spite of the infirmities of age, Mr. Screven served the church seven years longer, and died October 10, 1713, at the age of eighty-four.

p. 13Shortly after the colony under Humphrey Blake left England, another under the direction of Lord Cardross, a nobleman from the north of England, came to Carolina, bringing with him a company of North Britons, most of whom were Baptists, and settled at Port Royal Island. But encountering the hostility of the neighboring Indians and especially that of the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine, they removed their residence some time before 1686 to the mouth of the Edisto River.1 Many of these became members of the First Church of Charleston, thereby greatly increasing its strength and efficiency.