St. Paul Freewill Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it: and it's a story worth hearing. You know, some congregations come together with fanfare and founding documents and dignitaries cutting ribbons. And then there are the ones that come together with something quieter and deeper than all of that.

St. Paul Freewill Baptist Church, out in the Lancaster community, is that second kind. According to oral tradition (and don't you let anybody tell you oral tradition is a lesser kind of history), this congregation was organized in 1870.

By the freed Blacks of the Lancaster community. Eighteen seventy. Think about what that moment meant.

Think about what it took to look around, gather yourselves, and say: we are building something that will last. They didn't have land yet. They had each other, and they had that intention.

The land came later, in the late 1870s, during the pastorate of the Reverend Augustus Ferrin. Acquired it, held onto it. But the sanctuary itself (that building, that physical house of worship) wasn't completed until about 1892.

More than two decades after the founding. That's not a slow start. That's patience.

That's faith doing what faith does. Then, by 1905, the membership had grown enough that they enlarged the building to accommodate everybody coming through the doors. And here is the part that'll settle on you if you let it.

Descendants of many of those early members still worship there. Still. Upholding the ideals and traditions of the founders.

Eighteen seventy to now. That congregation didn't just survive; it kept its word across generations. Some things get built to last, and some things get built to mean something.

St. Paul Freewill Baptist Church managed to be both.

What the marker says

According to oral tradition, this congregation was organized in 1870 by the freed Blacks of the Lancaster community. Land for a church building was acquired in the late 1870s, during the pastorate of the Rev. Augustus Ferrin, but the sanctuary was not completed until about 1892. It was enlarged in 1905 to accommodate a growing membership. Descendants of many of the early members still worship here. As they continue to uphold the ideals and traditions of the founders.