The Seventh Day Baptist Meeting House

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Welcome to the Seventh Day Baptist
Meeting
House

In the 1660s, seven members of the First
Baptist Church of Newport became convinced that the Ten
Commandments should be obeyed literally, and began to observe
the Sabbath on Saturday, the seventh day of the week. In 1671,
they withdrew, formed the Seventh Day Baptist Church, and
chose William Hiscox as their first pastor. The freedom to act
on doctrinal differences such as these was possible in Rhode
Island because religious toleration had formed the foundation
for this unusual New England colony.

The Seventh Day Baptists built a small
meeting house on Barney Street sometime before 1712. By 1729,
however, they had outgrown this home, and, it is believed,
they employed Richard Munday, fresh from completing Newport's
Trinity Church in 1726, to design a new building for them.
Although no documentary evidence survives of Munday's
involvement, the design and details of the Seventh Day Baptist
Meeting House are so similar to Trinity Church as to make it
almost certain.

The new building, erected in
1730, was laid out in the "meeting house plan," typical of
many colonial churches in the 17th century. The members of
these churches were intent on purifying the excesses of the
Church of England and the Catholic Church, and their reforming
zeal was also directed at church architecture. The meeting
house plan avoided any suggestion of the crucifix, the heart
of the floorplan of the Catholic churches and cathedrals of
Europe.

Instead, the Seventh Day Baptists built a
simple, almost square building that looked like a modest house
from the outside. The door was on the long side of the
building and the pulpit was on the opposite wall facing the
door. The room was filled with box pews. Two aisles down
either side completed the symmetry of the
floorplan.

NHS P1580

Munday's building was simple in
plan, but elaborate in the detail and virtuostic in the
execution of the woodworking. Complex moldings, raised
bolection paneling, and beautifully hand carved balusters on
the staircase leading to the wineglass pulpit all attest not
only to Munday's skill but to the craftsmanship of his
workmen.

The Seventh Day Baptist
congregation flourished in Newport until the Revolution, when
most of the members scattered to avoid the British occupation.
Many relocated to Westerly, Rhode Island, a stronghold of the
Seventh Day Baptists since 1676, when Rev. William Hiscox, the
pastor at Newport, first made contact with settlers in that
area. In 1840, the Seventh Day Baptists rented their meeting
house to the Fourth Baptist Church for their public meetings,
and from 1864 to 1869, the meeting house was used by the
Shiloh Baptist Church, an African-American Congregation.

The Seventh Day Baptist Meeting
House was sold to the Newport Historical Society in 1884, and
the building became the first permanent headquarters and
exhibit facility of the Society since its founding in 1854.
The Society immediately restored the building under the
supervision of James Southwick and Newport architect, George
Champlin Mason, Jr. The Society, however, was concerned about
the building's location near the blacksmith and paint shops
surrounding it. In 1887, the building was moved to a site on
Touro Street. In 1889, a small addition was added to the rear
of the building to house the Newport Natural History Society,
and in 1902 another addition was attached to the front of the
building.

With more space, the Society received so
many donations of historic material that within ten years it
had once again outgrown its space. In 1915, the Seventh Day
Baptist Meeting House was moved once again to the back of the
lot and a three-story brick addition was placed between it and
the 1902 building.

At that time the meeting house was encased
in brick to "fireproof" the building. The Seventh Day Baptist
Meeting House has remained the headquarters building of the
Newport Historical Society ever since.

Hours:
Tuesday through Friday 9:30 am - 4:30 pm, Saturday 9:30
am - 12:00 noon.
Tours are by appointment only.

The Seventh Day Baptist Meeting House is attached to

the Headquarters of the Newport Historical Society, 82
Touro Street, Newport, RI.
Call (401) 846-0813 for more
information.

Source: "Entering Into Covenant: The
History of Seventh Day Baptists in Newport," by Don A.
Sanford, Newport History: the Quarterly Journal of the
Newport Historical Society, vol. 66, part 1, no. 226,
Summer 1994.

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