The History of Germain Street Baptist Church, St. John, N.B., for its first one hundred years, 1810-1910

At the annual business meeting held in January, 1909, T. D. Denham, D. Hunt and T.H. Belyea, surviving Church Clerks, were appointed as a committee to prepare for publication in book from the History of this Church from its formation in 1810 to its Centennial in 1910.
At the first meeting of the committee the writer, being senior surviving clerk, undertook the preparation of the History of the Church for the One Hundred Years of its existence—so far as it might be possible to secure the data for doing so; while to Mr. Belyea, the present clerk, was assigned the writing of the biographical sketches of the departed deacons; and to Mr. Hunt, the treasurer, the preparing of a complete account of the mortgages that have been on the present buildings and how they have been paid off.
The old records of the Church had been placed in the vault of the Deacon Francis for safe keeping, but when the vault was opened after the fire of 1877, it was found to contain nothing but charred remains of the books—the writing being undecipherable. This made the securing of the facts in connection with the early years a very difficult task; but from various sources the events set forth in the following pages have been obtained, and so far as possible verified, so that while parts of the History are not nearly as full as we could desire, in the main, I think, the account will be found to be as accurate as it is possible to make it at this late date. It is to be regretted that this work was not undertaken during the lifetime of a number of our older members who have since passed away, as their personal recollections, extending back for many years, would have been of great assistance in the preparation of our History.
Some of the information has been secured from Dr. Saunders’ “History of the Baptists,” and Dr. Bill’s “Fifty Years with the Baptists,” while the very full account of the life and labors Rev. Samuel Robinson is largely from two historical sermons delivered by Dr. Bill in 1863, from the securing of which from the Library of Acadia University we are indebted to Mr. Cohoon. Dr. Cutten also placed a collection of the “Minutes of Associations,” dating back to 1810—in which are references to this Church—at my disposal. For later minutes I am indebted to Dr. McIntyre and others. The description of the interior of the old wooden building and the early methods of lighting are from a paper by the late Miss Sarah J. Blakslee. In the early part of the work much of the original phraseology has been retained—their writer making only such changes as were required to make a connected story. From 1870 much of the matter is from my own personal knowledge of the affairs of the Church, and from the records we still possess. Another source of information—though necessarily curtailed—is from the document deposited in the corner stone of the present edifice, which was prepared by Dr. Carey, and engrossed on parchment by the writer. It was at first proposed to open the corner stone and copy the document, but this was avoided by securing an excellent account published in one of the City papers in 1877.