Rick wrote to the Southside List, asking about the seeming difficulties enoucntered by early Baptists in establishing and maintaining their followers in pre-Revolutionary VA, while those same groups seemed to gain considerable strength in New England, the upper Middle Colonies, and in the upper Shenandoah Valley.  

 
----- Original Message ----- 
....
: Saturday, September 04, 2004 7:46 PM
Subject: Re: [VA-SOUTHSIDE-L] early Baptists in Isle of Wight, Surry Co.


I can only add that - as you stated - the Baptists were opposed to infant Baptism, that belief being violative of the ages old Catholic then Church of England doctrines.  Then too, the early Baptists very much believed that the Scriptures demanded a separation of church and state, once again quite contrary to the views of the Anglicans and the Crown.

So it was that while the Baptists were active in New England under Roger Williams as early as 1635-1639, their presence in VA and the Carolinas was not in any way appreciated by the Crown, the Royal Governors, the Church, or by the very powerful Parish churches and priests.  Thus, while tiny groups got together in the outreaches of society, such meetings were not in favor.     

Remember the Anglican Parish Vestries were the province of the wealthy and affluent of every parish, and those men hardly looked favorably upon any religious discipline that seemed designed to disturb the status quo.  

Morrison and Commager have stated, "South of New York, the older settled region was English in race and Anglican or Quaker in religion...while the then "west"...was a mixture of Germans, Scots-Irish and English, who were Presbyterian, Baptist, or German sectarian...." ("A Concise History of the American Republic" (Oxford U. Press, NY, 1977; LCC 76-40742), See Index under "Baptists".    

Finally, landowners of the Eastern and Tidewater settlements controlled the general assemblies, and those - in their turn - discriminated against the "rough" undisciplined frontiersmen, their ways and methods, and their tendency to be rebellious toward the "establishment".  That antagonism was early displayed in the conflicts we now call the Paxton Boys and the Regulators, and in Shay's Rebellion.  

In short, the Baptists were hard put to bring other than trouble to themselves by their efforts to establish and maintain congregations in other than the more remote regions.

You might want to look at and participate in the efforts of Bob Webb at this site
 http://www.carthage.lib.il.us/community/churches/primbap/FamHist-VA-WV.html

Then too, I believe there is much more info here than can be written here without stretching our readers' patience. 
http://www.carthage.lib.il.us/community/churches/primbap/pbl.html

Paul
  
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Rick Arnold 
  To: [log in to unmask] 
  Sent: Saturday, September 04, 2004 6:28 PM
  Subject: [VA-SOUTHSIDE-L] early Baptists in Isle of Wight, Surry Co.


  All the histories I've found trace Baptist beginnings in Virginia to 1714, when a group at Burley (or Burleigh) in Isle of Wight Co. wrote to England requesting that a preacher be sent. ....

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