Mr. Waller so defended himself and his brethren that their enemies were somewhat puzzled to know how to proceed against them. They offered to release them on promise to refrain from preaching in the county for a year and a day. The defendants refused the offer and were sent to prison. Other Baptist ministers were arrested, and soon thirty were under arrest. The prisons became Baptist pulpits, and multitudes gathered around them to hear the preachers. Their opponents engaged drummers to drown the preaching; high enclosures were in some cases erected before prison windows, and suffocating materials were burned near the prisons. Baptists from the beginning were unremitting in their struggle to secure religious liberty. They secured the support of Patrick Henry, a member of the Established Church, but a firm friend of all who stood for liberty, civil and religious. He helped the Baptists to win the complete victory.
The Baptist cause was destined to have a more congenial atmosphere in Pennsylvania when we remember that William Penn, its illustrious founder, had an English Baptist father and a Dutch mother, undoubtedly of Anabaptist descent. He received his charter in 1681, forty-five years after Roger Williams’ banishment from Massachusetts. Penn possessed broad and liberal ideas and was opposed to any church establishment. He provided
that all persons who confess and acknowledge the Almighty and Eternal God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, ... should in no ways be molested, nor compelled to frequent or maintain any religious worship.
Yet only those confessing faith in Jesus Christ could become freemen in Penn’s domain. The separate Quakers in the colony of Pennsylvania were arrested, fined, and imprisoned for dissent.
John Clarke Memorial
First Baptist Church of Newport, R. I.
Grave of John Clarke
The first company of Baptists in this colony came from Rhode Island. William Dugan came there in 1684, three years after Penn received his charter. He settled at Cold Spring, in Bucks County. The first church in Philadelphia was founded by John Holmes in 1686. The first meeting-place was at the corner of Second and Chestnut Streets.
