Philadelphia Congregations Early Records

Featured Congregation/Collection

First Baptist Church, Philadelphia, PA

Notable for its early leadership in Baptist organization and evangelism, the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia was prominent both in its region and city and in the transatlantic community of Baptists. Begun in 1698 as a mission of the more suburban Pennepack (now, Lower Dublin) Baptist Church, First Baptist soon became the leading congregation for the city, region, and colonies, gaining independent status from Pennepack in 1746.

In 1707 the church hosted the organizing meeting of the…

Philadelphia Congregations Early Records

When completed, the Philadelphia Congregations Early Records project will offer over 80,000 pages of records from Philadelphia’s oldest congregations, connecting the archives of Christ Church, St. George’s Methodist Church, Gloria Dei, Mikveh Israel, the African Episcopal Church of St. Thomas, the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania, the Presbyterian Historical Society, St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, the American Baptist Historical Society, the Moravian Archives, and Friends Historical Library.

Digitized materials include minutes, account books, birth, marriage, death, and burial registers.

This project is supported by a Digitizing Hidden Collections grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR). The grant program is made possible by funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Additional support has been provided through a Historical & Archival Records Care (HARC) grant from the Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission (PHMC).