Ezekial Holliman was a founder of the
First Baptist Church in America.
Boston
Holliman ran into trouble while living in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
when he ran afoul of the prevailing religious sensibilities of the time. He was accused of
heresy
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important religi ...
, but left town before legal actions were initiated. He presumably thought that moving into the frontier would allow him a greater sense of religious liberty and so became one of the earliest settlers of
Dedham, Massachusetts.
Dedham
The original settlers of Dedham met for the first time on August 18, 1636 in
Watertown Watertown may refer to:
Places in China
In China, a water town is a type of ancient scenic town known for its waterways.
Places in the United States
*Watertown, Connecticut, a New England town
**Watertown (CDP), Connecticut, the central village ...
. By September 5, 1636, their number grew from 18 at the first meeting to 25 proprietors willing to set out for the new community. By November 25, however, so few people had actually moved to Dedham that the proprietors voted to require every man to move to Dedham permanently by the first day of the following November or they would lose the land they had been granted. A few young men without families set off to spend the winter there, including Holliman. He is one of two who were known to have been there as he and Nicholas Phillips were caught illegally cutting down trees in the new community. They incurred heavy fines for their infractions.
In the early days, decisions were made by
consensus in town meeting. Holliman felt he had been wronged by the Town when they fined him for illegally cutting down trees and covering his house in clapboard. He began boycotting public meetings in protest.
On July 18, 1637, the Town voted to admit a group of dogmatic Puritans that would radically change the course of the town's history. Holliman recognized that as a religious liberal that he was not going to be welcome among them. In July 1637, he sold his land in Dedham and moved on. By 1866, his land in Dedham would house the
First Church and Parish in Dedham
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
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*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
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, the
Allin Congregational Church
Allin Congregational Church is a historic United Church of Christ church in Dedham, Massachusetts. It was built in 1818 by conservative breakaway members of Dedham's First Church and Parish in the Greek Revival style.
History
The preaching of ...
,
St. Paul's Church, and the
first free public school in America.
Rhode Island
After leaving Dedham, Holliman settled in
Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...
where he was welcomed by
Roger Williams. The two men baptized each other
[ and founded the First Baptist Church in America.
]
References
Works cited
*
*{{cite book, last=Hopkins, first=Charles Wyman , title=The Home Lots of the Early Settlers of the Providence Plantations: With Notes and Plats, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0LMVGWi_gB8C, accessdate=April 9, 2021, date=June 2009, publisher=Genealogical Publishing Com, isbn=978-0-8063-4680-9
Christians from Rhode Island
People from colonial Dedham, Massachusetts
People from colonial Boston