The Bones of First Baptist

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In the cicada-loud September heat, a group of masked people murmured excitedly as they gathered around newly dug trenches on a lot near the intersection of Nassau and Francis streets in Colonial Williamsburg. They haven’t been digging graves or expecting to find any buried human remains, though on this particular property, that may still be a distinct possibility. The group was inspecting a uniquely diverse excavation effort that searched for and found the bones of a nineteenth-century African American church that was the firstborn of its kind in this area, and among the first in the nation.

That the fascinating history of First Baptist Church be honored and preserved is the mutual goal of the Let Freedom Ring Foundation and Colonial Williamsburg. Connie Matthews Harshaw, church member and the foundation’s president, believes theirs is a story deserving to be told in greater depth and detail than that which fits on the bronze plaque presently gracing this empty field on Nassau Street. To this end, archeologists from The Jamestown Rediscovery Project and Colonial Williamsburg united with The College of William & Mary and others in the community for a deep dig into its history — delving into the soil, dusty attics and library collections, and mining the oral family histories passed down from generation to generation.

“Black history does not begin and end in the month of February,” Harshaw says. It’s her dream that artifacts found during this dig will join other memorabilia in a permanent exhibit that will flesh out the church’s rich history and bring it to vivid life for visitors almost two and a half centuries later. “I’d love to open up the treasures of Swem Library’s Special Collections archives concerning early black life and make them safely and easily accessible to everyone,” Harshaw says with enthusiasm.

Williamsburg served as the capitol of Virginia from 1699 until 1780, when the new government relocated inland to Richmond. The official year of the church’s birth was 1776, a time when the nascent United States of America was just forming its “more perfect union.” When the smoke of revolutionary battle cleared, the new republic still proved grievously imperfect for the enslaved population living in Williamsburg. They and their free brethren made up at least 51 percent of the capitol’s population, yet it was illegal for more than three of them to gather together to worship God.

Believers led by an itinerant free black preacher, Reverend Moses, dared to meet anyway at nearby Green Springs Plantation, employing a brush arbor constructed of wooden posts woven with sticks and branches for scant shelter. In 1781, the congregation moved to a more rural location called Raccoon Chase. There they organized formally under the Baptist banner thanks to the leadership of their pastor, an enslaved man named Reverend Gowan Pamphlet, who suffered regular punishment by his tavern-owner mistress for persisting in his illegal ministry. Upon his ordination in 1772, he became “the first and only ordained black preacher of any denomination in the country,” according to Colonial Williamsburg’s research. The Reverend Pamphlet continued this ministry until his death in 1807.

By 1818, Mr. Jesse Cole, a white landowner, had offered the church the use of the carriage house on his personal property in Williamsburg as a place to worship, and it is labeled on maps of the time as the Baptist Meeting House. Harshaw shares that she has had the privilege to speak with Williamsburg resident Vernon M. Geddy, III, and his sister, Anne Lewis Geddy Cross, who are among the modern-day descendants of the nieces and nephews the childless Coles adopted as their heirs. She asked if they knew what motivated such a generous and courageous offer, one that put the illegally operating church under Mr. Cole’s personal protection. “It had to be God prompting him to act,” Anne Geddy Cross replied. “There’s no other explanation.” There is oral history in this family that tells of Mr. Cole’s patronage, and how Mrs. Cole would come back home from traditional services at Bruton Parish and throw open the windows overlooking the carriage house so she could enjoy the soul-stirring hymns and prayers of the Baptist congregation.

“To listen to the two parallel oral histories that have survived, from the black perspective and from the white, is so exciting for me!” Harshaw says. “These are things that are precious and need to be part of the public interpretation of the way things really were in colonial America and beyond.”

At some point, legal ownership of the land passed from Jesse Cole to the church, but no record of a bequest or deed of gift survived the Civil War’s destruction of records and the devastating courthouse fire of 1912. By 1830, there were 619 members, both free and enslaved, of the thriving African Baptist Church, as it was then known. After a tornado blew the original wooden structure down, a newly built brick church, complete with steeple, bell, and stately Palladian windows, was erected in 1856. They continued to grow, and on June 23,1887, the church completed the purchase of an additional 20 feet of land, bought for $100 from Robert F. Cole, to enlarge their property. When the Civil War ended, the church also functioned as a school and remained the center of social life and a multi-purpose gathering spot for the town’s people of color for a century. Colonial Williamsburg purchased the historic building and land from the congregation in 1954, the proceeds of which helped to construct the present First Baptist Church at 727 Scotland Street, which was dedicated in 1956.

“We did an exploratory excavation of the property in 1957, looking specifically for brick foundations of eighteenth-century buildings which could be reconstructed to fit with our interpretation of that period,” Jack Gary, CW’s director of archeology, says. “They found some that predated the 1856 church, but didn’t know what the structures were or their function. It’s possible they could even be associated with a house on that land belonging to a Mr. Custis in the very early 1700s.” After that cursory survey was completed, the lot was cleared and has remained undisturbed until now, which excites the archeologists and historians of today. For them, such an opportunity to explore pristine historical sites is an unusual privilege. Thanks to ground-penetrating radar technology, traces of the original nineteenth-century post holes of the first brick structure were uncovered again on a larger scale in late September of 2020. “So many questions remain, and we’re hopeful that further excavation will answer them,” Gary says.

Connie Harshaw had visited the Nassau Street dig many times, but on this day was overwhelmed by the sight of visual proof of the history of her church. “It is emotional to know that for so many years it was covered up. Now that it’s been uncovered and found to be intact, that’s pretty amazing,” Harshaw says. The dig was scheduled to last for seven weeks, with this first phase fully funded by generous donor support. The next phase is in the planning stage and is driven by the discovery of evidence such as these foundations. Jack Gary said in a recent interview, “We’re looking at different layers, different features, and different artifacts at this site. The results of this initial phase will help to inform how we move forward with additional research that will allow us to fully understand, interpret, and commemorate this nationally important site of early African-American worship experience.”

The Reverend Doctor Reginald F. Davis, the church’s current pastor, welcomes people of any color or creed to worship with the members of First Baptist and invites them to pull in solidarity the rope which rings the iconic, recently restored, 1856 Freedom Bell. The Virginia Gazette, Williamsburg’s local paper, quoted him regarding the project’s purpose: “The dig is [meant] to go back and release and unearth those voices that have been silenced a long time. As we’ve always said, until the lion tells his side of the story, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” In 2020, on a grassy lot on Nassau Street, the hunter and the lion are at last acting in unison, changing the narrative to include, honor, and interpret everyone equally. They are jointly writing a new story that reflects more accurately the history of Williamsburg’s people and their beloved city.