African Baptist Meeting House and Burial Ground
The African Baptist Meeting House and Burial Ground was the original permanent location of the First Baptist Church, one of the earliest African American congregations in the United States. A congregation of enslaved and free people of African descent worshipped, built a community, and buried family members at this Nassau Street site. Following Colonial Williamsburg’s purchase and removal of the church, the congregation relocated to Scotland Street, where its members have worshipped since 1956. In partnership with the First Baptist Church of Williamsburg and the Let Freedom Ring Foundation, Colonial Williamsburg has engaged in a multi-year project to excavate, study, and reconstruct this important historic site.
Green Spring plantation, where congregants secretly gathered for worship. Jean Nicolas Desandroüins (ca. 1781). Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
An enslaver described the self-emancipated man James Williams as “fond of singing hymns and preaching.” Virginia Gazette, Sept. 8, 1775, p. 3. Link.
Enslaved by tavernkeeper Jane Vobe, preacher Gowan Pamphlet spent many of his days working at the King’s Arms Tavern.
The Congregation’s Beginnings
How did the enslaved and free people of African descent in Williamsburg first gather into a religious community? Why did they eventually associate themselves with the Baptist church? How did they remain resilient despite challenges to their religious freedom? Learn more about the origins of the First Baptist congregation below.
Upon This Rock
Because of gaps in the historical record, it is uncertain exactly when the congregation began to worship publicly in Williamsburg. In the early nineteenth century, they erected a church building on Nassau Street. They built the church on land owned by local businessman Jesse Cole, which he took ownership of in 1804. The first documentary reference to the Baptist meeting house on Nassau Street appears in 1818.11
Archaeological excavations uncovered the brick foundation and paving of the original church building, as well as the foundations of the second church, built in 1856.
Recent archaeological research has uncovered new information about this building and the land it was built on. A swampy ravine cut through the property, leaving only its northern section usable for building. On this small patch, congregants constructed the church. This was likely a quick, simple construction. Archaeological excavations did not uncover evidence of a builder's trench, indicating that they laid bricks directly on the ground to level the structure. However, soon after the initial construction, they expanded the building with an addition, which featured a formal foundation. “They established themselves on that land,” says Matthew Webster, Colonial Williamsburg’s Executive Director of Architectural Preservation and Research, “They took nothing and made something. They built in a swamp, on a site that nobody wanted, and created a church.”
Meet Gowan Pamphlet
An enslaved tavern worker, Gowan Pamphlet risked his well-being to secretly preach to fellow African American believers. He founded Williamsburg’s First Baptist Church.
Destruction and Reconstruction
First Baptist Church burial markers are unveiled at a ceremony outside of the First Baptist Church Archaeological Site on Nassau Street at Colonial Williamsburg.
The church continued to thrive and grow in Williamsburg into the 1830s. However, a tornado destroyed the first church building in 1834.12 Two decades later, the congregation returned to the site and built a larger brick structure, where they worshipped for about a century. Colonial Williamsburg purchased the second church and tore it down in 1957. Portions of the site were excavated in 1957 but found “no indication of 18th century habitation.”13 Since Colonial Williamsburg’s researchers were seeking earlier structures, they moved on to other projects. The site was largely ignored for decades.
More recently, Colonial Williamsburg has partnered with the First Baptist Church and the Let Freedom Ring Foundation to research and memorialize the people of the original congregation. In October 2024, Colonial Williamsburg and the descendant community worked together to memorialize the burial ground with stone markers. This partnership will continue to guide the reconstruction of the building and eventually its interpretation to the public.
New Research into the First Congregants
While there is relatively little documentary evidence about the people who made up the early First Baptist Church, we have learned more from their descendants as well as from recent archaeological research. Many of the artifacts that have been discovered speak to the church’s core functions of fellowship, celebration, and worship.
Burials
Research at the site revealed 62 burial shafts. At the direction of and in partnership with the descendant community, Colonial Williamsburg further investigated three of the burials to confirm if they were early congregants.(14) The excavations established that these people had been buried in the early 19th century, at the time of the first meeting house. DNA evidence from one individual proved that person was of African ancestry. These findings confirm that early First Baptist Church congregants buried their loved ones on the property.
Adornment
Excavations at the site of the African Baptist Meeting House uncovered more than 160 straight pins used in clothing, largely found around the door. These artifacts tell a story. We can imagine congregants coming to church with their clothes carefully held together by pins, as was typical at the time especially for women’s clothing. After some of these were dislodged during worship, they would have been swept out the front door, and only discovered years later.
Money Boxes
During excavations, archaeologists found the remains of what initially appeared to be the finials (or ornamental tops) of several teapots. According to Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg’s Executive Director of Archaeology, “It wasn’t just one or two. It was quite a few. We thought, ‘Wow, this is a lot of teapots to be finding around a church.’ Once we started to piece the fragments back together, we realized they were little piggy banks, or money boxes, with a slot for coins. And the only way to get the coins out was to bust them open.” Archaeologists discovered the remains of at least twelve money boxes, likely used to raise funds for the church or impoverished congregants.
Explore Current Projects
The restoration and preservation of Williamsburg began in 1926 and has been ongoing ever since. Explore some of the projects currently underway.
The African Baptist Meeting House and Burial Ground Restoration Project is made possible through partnerships with the First Baptist Church of Williamsburg and the Let Freedom Ring Foundation. The First Baptist Church of Williamsburg is one of the country’s earliest African American congregations, founded by free and enslaved Black worshippers. Following Colonial Williamsburg’s purchase and removal of the church, the congregation relocated to Scotland Street, where its members have worshiped since 1956.
Sources
- Rebecca Anne Goetz, The Baptism of Early Virginia: How Christianity Created Race (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 6, 163.
- Carter G. Woodson, The History of the Negro Church (Associated Publishers, 1921), 32; Sylvia R. Frey and Betty Wood, Come Shouting to Zion: African American Protestantism in the American South and British Caribbean to 1830 (Chapel Hill: 1998), 102.
- Robert Baylor Semple, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia (Richmond: 1894), 148, link.
- William Waller Hening, The statutes at large; being a collection of all the laws of Virginia, from the first session of the legislature, in the year 1619 (Richmond: 1819), 6:108, link.
- Linda Rowe, “Gowan Pamphlet: Baptist Preacher in Slavery and Freedom,” Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 120 (no. 1): 14, 15, 21.
- Rowe, “Gowan Pamphlet,” 21–23.
- Quoted in Archibald Bolling Shepperson, John Paradise and Lucy Ludwell of London and Williamsburg (Richmond, 1942), 51–52.
- Rowe, “Gowan Pamphlet,” 15, 18.
- On opposition, see Rowe, “Gowan Pamphlet,” 19.
- Quoted in Linda Rowe, “Gowan Pamphlet,” 25.
- Linda Rowe, “Gowan Pamphlet,” 25, 31n55.
- “Tornado at Williamsburg,” The American Beacon and Norfolk and Portsmouth Daily Advertiser, June 23, 1834, p. 3.
- The 1957 report is summarized in Patricia Samford, “First Baptist Church Archaeological Report, Block 38, Building 33,” Colonial Williamsburg Digital Library (1985).
- According to church records, when an annex was planned for construction in 1953, a woman referred to as Sister Epps pointed out that the “annex was to be built over ground where her great grandfather was buried, so she asked that her family be permitted to put an inscription in the floor. Her request was granted.” Quoted from Tommy Bogger, Since 1776: The History of the First Baptist Church Williamsburg, Virginia (Williamsburg, 2006), 69. See also First Baptist Church Minutes III, p. 105.
