Slideshow Image 1 Slideshow Image 2 Slideshow Image 3 Slideshow Image 4 Slideshow Image 5 Slideshow Image 6 Slideshow Image 7
facebook

Notes on Free Will Baptist Preachers
(The Free Will Baptists of Georgetown II, Georgetown Tide, vol. 44, no. 2)

crossed the Kennebec at Georgetown … :  Rev. Frederick L. Wiley, Life and Influence of the Rev. Benjamin Randall, Founder of the Free Baptist Denomination (American Baptist Publication Society, 1915) 95

George Lamb’s career: Rev. G. A. Burgess and Rev. J. T. Ward, Free Baptist Cyclopaedia: Historical and biographical … (Free Baptist Cyclopaedia Co., 1889) 329.

Silas Curtis: Ibid.pp. 145-146.

Ephraim Stinchfield: Ibid. pp. 622-624 and Ephraim Stinchfield papers (Maine Historical Society).

Without a seminary …:  For an outline of the evolution of the Free Baptist Education Society to Bates College, see Historical Note, Guide to the Freewill Baptist records, 1797-1970 (http://abacus.bates.edu/muskie-archives/EADFindingAids/MC091.html retrieved July 4, 2018).

At least three women…: Susan (Stevens) Emmons, married February 22, 1810 and gave birth on April 8; Mary (Oliver) Oliver, married June 7, 1810 and gave birth in October; Polley (Hogan) Stinson, married April 17, 1810 and gave birth on August 10.
In New England, the rate of pregnancy at the time of marriage decreased in the early nineteenth century from what it had been previously.  See Gloria L. Main, “Rocking the Cradle: Downsizing the New England Family,” The Journal of Interdisciplinary History 37:1 (summer 2006) pp. 35-58.

The headstones of John and Mehitable Linnan (near the northwest corner of Oak Cemetery) are each engraved with a verse from the hymn Why Should We Start and Fear to Die?, by Isaac Watts (1674-1748). 

His is the first verse:
Why should we start and fear to die?
What tim’rous worms we mortals are!
Death is the gate to endless joy,
And yet we dread to enter there.

Hers is the last:
Jesus can make a dying bed
Feel soft as downy pillows are;
While on His breast I lean my head,
And breathe my life out sweetly there.

The hymn has been published in hymnals of several Protestant denominations since at least the early 19th century, ranging from A Selection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs: designed (especially the former part) for the use of congregations as an appendix to Dr. Watt's Psalms and Hymn (1809) no. 412 to The Baptist Hymnal: for use in the church and home (2012) no. 620.

© Georgetown Historical Society
20 Bay Point Rd., P.O. Box 441, Georgetown, ME 04548 • 207-371-9200
email the webmaster