Shiloh Baptist Church (also known as Trinity School House) is a historic former school building and former

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...

church in

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is an American seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, ...

History

School house

In February 1799, the wardens and vestry of Trinity Church voted to build a school house. The funds were provided by a bequest by Nathaniel Kay. The resulting rectangular Georgian structure was 40 feet long and 25 feet wide. It was said that "many of the leading citizens of Newport attended school in this house." The school continued operation until 1867 when the building was purchased by the Shiloh Baptist congregation.

Shiloh Baptist Church

The Shiloh Church was an African American Baptist congregation founded on May 10, 1864, by Edmund Kelly in a house at 73 Levin Street owned by Esther Brinley. William James Barnett was installed as the first pastor, followed shortly by Theodore Valentine. The congregation met for five years in the Seventh Day Baptist Church, on Barney Street near Spring Street, but desired their own permanent location. In 1868 the members of Shiloh Church purchased the school building on the corner of School and Mary streets from the Trinity Church corporation, at a cost of $2,000." The congregation moved into their new home on February 24, 1869, to a dedicatory sermon preached by Rev. Samuel Adlam. The cost of the church was raised from members over the next fourteen months.

Pastor Henry N. Jeter

Paster Henry Jeter Shiloh Baptist Church Rhode Island

Henry N. Jeter served as pastor of the Shiloh Baptist Church for 25 years, starting in 1875. Jeter established a written constitution and expanded the choir. He was known for "diligently uniting the people despite obstacles." The building was renovated in 1873, at a cost of $1,600. An annex was built on the south side of the church in 1884, to house the parish hall. In 1897 the church remodeled the entrance and replaced the glass in the arched windows with stained glass.

Twentieth Century

The building was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1971, at which time it was still owned by the Shiloh Baptist Society. By 2020, it was operating as a bed and breakfast.

References

External links

Pastor Henry N. Jeter's Twenty-five Years Experiencewith the Shiloh Baptist Church and Her History. Corner School and Mary Streets, Newport, R. I.:Electronic Edition.
(University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Documenting the American South) (accessed Sept. 9, 2010) African-American history of Rhode Island Churches completed in 1798 Baptist churches in Rhode Island Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Rhode Island Churches in Newport, Rhode Island 18th-century Baptist churches in the United States National Register of Historic Places in Newport, Rhode Island Historic district contributing properties in Rhode Island {{RhodeIsland-church-stub