This building was known as “the Shiloh Baptist Meeting House.”Įven before the building was constructed, the congregation was thriving. It is believed that a brick church building was erected on the site in the late 1830s or early 1840s. In April 1820, Horace Marshall and his wife, Elizabeth, sold the lot at what is now 801 Sophia Street to the trustees of “the New Baptist Meeting House” for $900. The damaged shell had remained largely unused for a decade.īy 1818, some Baptists expressed interest in constructing a larger, more permanent building on the site, which perhaps encompassed the ruins of the earlier church. This building, originally owned by the Bank of Virginia, had been badly damaged during the great Fredericksburg Fire of 1807, which destroyed about half of the buildings in town. At that time, some members withdrew and began worshiping in a building along the Rappahannock River at what is now the present location of Shiloh Baptist Church (Old Site). The original wooden building remained the main gathering place for Fredericksburg’s Baptists until 1815. Nearly all early churches in Fredericksburg had separate entrances for Blacks (often a side door), as well as separate seating areas (often a crudely furnished gallery), for blacks. The congregation included white folks, enslaved and exploited Black folks, and a few individuals known locally as “free Negroes,” though their freedom was in no way equal to that of the whites.īlacks who sought membership were examined first by certain Black brethren, then by a group of white deacons. The wooden building stood near what is now the Fredericksburg train station on Lafayette Boulevard. Some local records suggest that the first Baptist meeting house in Fredericksburg, Virginia, was established about 1804. The information in this history is periodically updated or extended. Others have joined the committee since then. Davies, Bernice Easley, Faye Jones, Roland Moore, Mark W. At that time, the committee consisted of Janice P. It was a project of the History and Archives Committee of Shiloh Baptist Church (Old Site). This abbreviated history was largely prepared in 2015. An illustrated history of the vibrant Fredericksburg congregation now known as Shiloh Baptist Church (Old Site)
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