A timber-frame replica of one of the nation's oldest Black churches is about to rise again on the very ground where Colonial Williamsburg once paved over its foundations and burial ground to build a visitor parking lot. The reconstructed 1805 African Baptist Meeting House on Nassau Street is set for dedication at 9 a.m. this Friday, October 9, marking the centerpiece of First Baptist Church's 250th anniversary weekend.
First Baptist Church's congregation formed in secret in 1776, and the church building itself went up around 1810, according to WAVY.com. The preservation effort that led to Friday's dedication began when church leaders heard oral history from a descendant whose family was said to be buried at the site, prompting preservationists to search the grounds and uncover a largely unmarked cemetery reported to contain at least 62 burials, the station reports. Workers marked a major construction milestone this past July, when church leaders and Colonial Williamsburg drove nine wooden pegs into the foundation during a frame-raising ceremony for the 16-by-32-foot structure, according to the Williamsburg Yorktown Daily.
A Site Erased, Then Rediscovered
Colonial Williamsburg purchased the Nassau Street property from the congregation, demolished its 1856 brick sanctuary in 1956, and paved over both the church site and its adjacent graveyard to build parking for museum visitors, the Associated Press reported in coverage carried by Smithsonian Magazine. Proceeds from that sale funded the congregation's current sanctuary on Scotland Street, where the church remains active 250 years after its founding, per the same account.
That renewed dig eventually produced definitive proof. In April 2023, geneticists and archaeologists reported that remains from three graves dated to the first half of the 19th century; only one set yielded viable DNA, Smithsonian Magazine reported. The analysis examined the men's age, ancestry, teeth and childhood stressors. The College of William & Mary was an excavation partner. By October 2024, Colonial Williamsburg and church descendants had placed permanent stone grave markers over the uncovered burial sites, designed in consultation with the descendant community, according to Colonial Williamsburg.
Artifacts Reveal Literacy Under Enslavement
First Baptist Church has already opened a small museum recreating the pulpit interior of the congregation's second building, WAVY.com reports. Among the artifacts on display are fragments of writing slates and slate pencils. Connie Matthews Harshaw said the items show that free and enslaved Black individuals apparently knew how to read and write, per the station's report. Reginald Davis added that enslaved people were brought to the area without possessions but retained their intellectual ability, the outlet notes.
Janice Canaday, African-American community engagement manager at Colonial Williamsburg, said African Americans have always been present in Williamsburg, per the same account. That presence is backed by the historical record: Black residents made up more than half of Williamsburg's population throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, yet Colonial Williamsburg did not begin incorporating African American history into its public interpretation until 1979, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
From Gowan Pamphlet to a National Stage
Gowan Pamphlet, whose life dates are approximate, is part of the congregation's early history. The congregation's original wooden meeting house, erected on Nassau Street in the early 19th century, stood until a tornado destroyed it in 1834, forcing members to worship elsewhere until they built the brick sanctuary on the same lot in 1856 — the building that served the congregation for a century before its demolition.
First Baptist Church's reach eventually extended far beyond Williamsburg. In September 2016, President Barack Obama rang the church's Freedom Bell to officially open the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall, a moment Hoodline covered in its look back at the museum's 10th anniversary.
A 250th Anniversary Weekend
Johnette Gordon Weaver said First Baptist Church is collecting and telling interconnected Williamsburg-area histories, according to WAVY.com. Friday's dedication of the reconstructed meeting house on Nassau Street will celebrate the congregation's 250th anniversary. Descendants and historians believe ancestors connected to the church remain scattered across Williamsburg, a legacy this reconstruction effort is meant to help honor and trace.
