A History of the East Otisfield Free Baptist Church

By Jean Hankins

The East Otisfield Free Baptist Church holds an important place in Otisfield history. As a religious body it has continued longer than any other denomination in town. Its building on Rayville road is Otisfield’s oldest church building. Its records and annals show a body of people with the courage to hold steadfast to their beliefs and, over the years, to persevere even in the face of considerable difficulties. Its story demonstrates the willingness of Otisfield’s Baptists to tolerate and cooperate with those of other religious faiths.

When Otisfield was settled in 1773, one of the conditions Massachusetts placed on its founders was that they must build a church for the residents and that the church be not Baptist but Congregationalist. Accordingly the proprietors and first citizens built the first Bell Hill Meetinghouse, constructed between 1795 and 1799, and replaced by the present building, designed by Nathan Nutting, Jr., in 1839.

According to Massachusetts law, the taxes paid by everyone in town, whether or not they attended the church, went to support the Congregational church and its minister. But not all the people moving into the new town were Congregationalists. Within two years after the new meetinghouse was erected, a number of Methodists and Baptists in Otisfield began petitioning the town for relief from supporting the Congregational Church which they did not attend. State law required that in order to be exempt from such taxes, individuals had to prove they were regularly attending and supporting some other church. Town records contain a number of these petitions and statements. Among those signing petitions were the founders of Otisfield’s Baptist Church.

The Free Will Baptists

The Baptists who began showing up in Otisfield about 1800 were Free Will Baptists. Without doubt, this is the main reason the East Otisfield Free Baptist Church bears that name. The denomination owes its start to Benjamin Randall, a sailmaker and tailor by profession, who began to preach in the back country of New Hampshire shortly after the American Revolution. He was a controversial figure who rejected what he considered the beliefs of the traditional, or Calvinistic, Baptist Church. In 1780 Randall founded a new kind of Baptist church at Durham, New Hampshire. That church is usually considered the first Free Will Baptist Church in America. Randall’s preaching of a benevolent, Christ-like God attracted many believers in rural New England. Between 1780 and 1810, over 100 Free Will Baptist churches were founded. By 1880, Maine had over 15,000 Free Will Baptists.

The early Free Will Baptists were characterized by their plain dress and humility. Like other Baptists, they rejected infant baptism. Unlike other Baptists, however, they emphasized not formal doctrine but Christian behavior, including pacifism. They were such strong believers in abolitionism that they refused to wear clothes made of cotton because it was produced by slave labor. Tolerant and respectful of the beliefs of others, they rejected the Calvinist principle that man was born evil and that God selected only a few to be saved. Instead they believed in a kindly God who gave all men the free will to follow His commandments.

According to the petitions and certificates in the town records, as recorded by William Spurr, the first Baptists in town were Daniel Cobb, Chipman Cobb, Napthali Harmon, John Scribner, Jonathan Piper, James Gerrish, Joseph Cate, and Daniel Scribner. In 1802 Zachariah Leach signed himself as “Minister of the Baptist.” By 1804 James McCorson was pastor. Of this early church Spurr writes, “This early church failed for want of support but was again organized Nov. 16, 1823, by a council convened at the home of the Rev. William G. Cobb.” The reorganized society consisted of Andrew, Jonathan, and Hannah Cobb; Eunice Morse; and Betsy and Nancy Winship. It was this small group who, five years later, joined with the Methodists to construct the present church. This 1828 building has been called, at different times, the union church or the free meetinghouse, terms that signify both a spirit of interfaith cooperation and of Christian liberality. These sentiments are still much in evidence in today’s church.

A second Free Will Baptist Church in the town was organized in South Otisfield in 1858. It seems to have continued until about 1900, with meetings held mostly in the summer. According to Spurr, the church building in South Otisfield gradually deteriorated until it fell down about 1946.

Nineteenth-century services at the Free Baptist Church might seem a bit strange to today’s churchgoers. One church historian states that at monthly meetings all members of the church were expected to “speak of their Christian experience and test their fellowship with each other.” The services included exhortations, confession, prayer, and praise. Each church, like today, had a ruling elder or moderator, a pastor, a deacon, and a clerk. Quarterly meetings were the regional associations which organized individual Free Baptist congregations. By 1895 there were 19 such quarterly meetings in the state of Maine, one of which was held in Otisfield. In that year twelve churches were represented at the Otisfield quarterly meeting.

During the years following the establishment of the Free Will Baptist churches in New England, there was little communication between the Free Will Baptists and the “regular” Baptists, or Calvinistic Baptists, as they were sometimes known. Some New England towns even had two Baptist churches, one of each kind, and both considered themselves the only “real” Baptists. But as time passed, the Free Baptists began to give up their strict rules of personal conduct, while the Calvinistic Baptists relinquished their beliefs in predestination. By 1911 the Baptists of Maine agreed on the fundamental principles of their faith and came together as the United Baptist Convention of Maine. One historian has declared that the union of the two bodies was not “an indication of one group’s willingness to tolerate another,” but an affirmation that the views of the Free Will Baptists had become widely accepted by Calvinist Baptists. Most of these united Baptist churches now belong to the American Baptist Convention. Although the Free Will Baptists no longer exist as a distinct organization, the words “free” and “free will” continue to prefix the names of many Baptist churches in northern New England. The East Otisfield church is among them.  

The church building

Like all churches, the East Otisfield Free Baptist Church is both a group of individuals and a building. While the members of the church provide its vitality and strive to fulfill its mission, the church structure itself symbolizes the congregation’s traditions and the endurance of its faith.

The church building stands today as a remarkable symbol of the successful cooperation between various Protestant denominations in town. For a number of years the Baptists and Methodists met, with the town’s permission, in the Bell Hill meetinghouse at times when the Congregationalists were not using it. By the 1820s the number of non-Congregationalists in town had grown to the point that they needed a church building of their own, which neither the Methodists nor the Baptists could afford. Their solution, as mentioned earlier, was to build a single church where both groups could meet. On August 25, 1827, according to the first clerk’s book of the Free Baptist Church, 41 Otisfield men resolved that it was “of importance to the best interest of [the community] to erect a Meetinghouse…in the Town of Otisfield near Henry Holden’s.” The new meetinghouse was to “be free for all Christians of all denominations to meet in for the worship of God agreeable to the dictates of conscience and usual practice of each respective denomination.”

This wording, which requires the church to be “free for all Christians,” is one reason the church’s official name became the East Otisfield Free Baptist Church. The other reason for the use of the word “free” is, of course, that it was the home of the Free Baptists. As an historical footnote, it is worth mentioning that for a brief time, a third denomination, the Universalists, shared the church with the Methodists and Baptists.

The new union church was built on land donated by Henry Holden, in the part of East Otisfield originally called Holdenville but later known as Rayville. By 1828-29, when the church was constructed, the population of Otisfield had begun to shift away from Bell Hill, where the first houses, meetinghouse, town common, and general store had been built. The village of Rayville was centered around the outlet of Saturday Pond where David Ray built the town’s first gristmill about 1781. A few years later Ray moved his family there and added a sawmill. During the early years of the union church, the village boasted, besides the mills, a physician, an attorney, a shoemaker, a blacksmith, a grocery store, a carriage shop, and even at one time a milliner’s shop!

The interdenominational building committee of 1828 consisted of Thomas Jackson, Henry Holden, and Otis Fernald. The church was to be 42 feet by 50 feet with posts fourteen feet long. It was to contain 50 pews. A large number of individuals helped construct it. The building’s total cost, $1036, was met by selling pews, the common fundraising method of the time. Samuel Wardwell, for example, paid $24 and received pew no. 11; Stevens Rich paid $25 for pew no. 29. Buying a pew did not mean, of course, that the individual could ever take the pew home, but only that he and his family were entitled to sit in that spot each Sunday.

The trustees later voted to build a fence around the building “except the part next the road.” They were finicky about the fence posts which, they specified, were to be at least eight inches wide at the small end and were to be set no more than eight feet apart. They also directed that an altar should be built in front of the pulpit. After the formal dedication of the meetinghouse in January 1829, the trustees voted that the outside of the building should be painted white and the doors and fans green.

No pictures survive of that original structure, but we know that by 1866 the building had fallen into disrepair. Town historian William Spurr states that “the walls began to spread.” By this date, the Universalists, never very numerous, seem to have disappeared from town. And the Methodists, some of whom were now attending the new Methodist Church in Bolster’s Mills, apparently relinquished their share of the meetinghouse to the Baptists. A new committee–this one all Baptists–was appointed to recommend changes: Otis Fernald, James L. Holden, Benjamin T. Holden, Eliphalet Wight, and Henry Holden, Jr. Some drastic modifications were in order. The building was narrowed to thirty-six feet. Posts were “to be raised from twelve inches to twenty-four inches above the top of the plate, with a recess panel in the center of the ceiling overhead.” The pulpit was now moved to the north end and the pews turned to face it. The floor was levelled. The gallery (or balcony) was removed. The “singing seats” for the choir were placed behind the outside doors and elevated to the same height as the pulpit platform.

There were still more alterations. The committee specified three windows on each side of the building and two in each end, “all to be finished “settee fashion, with modern style and pediment end,” and the pew doors were  removed. Most of the other furniture in the old building was sold. Once again, individuals were called on to purchase the newly refurbished pews in order to finance the building costs.

By the following year, the church’s structural changes were complete and the meetinghouse assumed the basic simple design it still bears more than 140 years later. Over the years more modifications have been made in the building’s interior. Before central heating was installed, two wood stoves sufficed to heat the church. Electric lights were installed in the 1930s and an oil furnace in the 1940s. A new vestry and kitchen were dedicated in 1962 with a bathroom installed in 1972. The ceiling was lowered in 1973. In many cases, it was the church members themselves who did the work. When central heating was introduced, the Rev. William Dunstan himself built the chimney.

The interior of the church has changed in keeping with the stylistic preferences on the times, not to mention changing notions of economy. Some members still remember the old church carpeting with its big red roses. They can describe, with some delight, the bonfire which years later burned the old rug and its roses after new carpeting was installed. Others rmember the pink paint applied to the church’s interior walls in the 1940s, when Bill Dunstan discovered it was the cheapest color available. After a long period of pink walls, the Circle ladies paid to cover the pink with a neutral beige, to the satisfaction of many.

By 1998 it was clear that the vestry room, kitchen, and storage areas added onto the church from time to time were no longer adequate. The church undertook a successful campaign to raise funds to renovate and expand the old vestry area and to provide, among other things, a new study for the pastor. The church and vestry were reroofed. Two handicapped-accessible bathrooms were created; the kitchen was moved and remodeled; the furnace moved to a lower level; and new storage space created.

And in 2008, following the death of the Rev. Gertrude DeCoteau, pastor of the church for 24 years, the congregation commissioned a stained glass window, placed in the middle front window of the church, to commemorate her many years as faithful church shepherd.  

Church activities and social groups

The musical ministry of the church has always beenan important part of the worship service. Early Baptists sang praises to God even before they acquired any means of instrumental accompaniment. The old records do not tell us much about the church’s first organs or those who played them. To the best of anyone’s memory, there have been only four organs. The first, which now keeps dignified silence in the rear of the church, produced music by foot power. The second was an electric organ, purchased in 1960 and replaced in 1970 by an electric Hammond organ. In 1996, a successful fundraising campaign resulted in the purchase of an electronic Technics keyboard more appropriate for some choral arrangements. The names of the earliest organists are not known. In later years, Ethel Hirst and Pearl Peaco were noted not just for their musical skills but for their many years of devoted service. For a number of years Mrs. Hirst directed a small choir. Since about 1980, Priscilla Delehanty has served as organist.Since 1994 she has directed an enthusiastic choir of a dozen members whose combined voices glorify God each Sunday.

In addition to its importance as a regional center for Free Will Baptists, the church in East Otisfield has always been important as a community center. During most of the nineteenth century it was known as “the lower meetinghouse” to distinguish it from the “upper meetinghouse,” that is, the Congregational Church on Bell Hill. Otisfield resident Pliny Henley, a Congregationalist, wrote in his diary on December 25, 1871, that he “went to a Christmas entertainment” at the lower house, meaning the Baptist Church at Rayville.

Throughout the years, the church has sponsored a number of groups, most of which grew out of a common desire for fellowship, sociability, Christian education, moral improvement, or philanthropy. Until the vestry or fellowship room was completed in 1962, all such church groups met in members’ homes or in the Otisfield Community Hall. Today we have only scanty records and little memory of the Missionary Society, Junior Girls Society, World Wide Guild, Children’s World Crusade, Junior Church Group, and Vacation Bible School. Of the Sunshine Society, we know only that it was a ladies social group, organized about 1910. And we know that about 1982 the Reverend George Wardwell was instrumental in forming a large youth group which flourished for a number of years.

By far the oldest and longest lasting organization affiliated with the church was the Ladies Circle, which until recently was an important group in both church and community. Just when the Circle was first organized is not clear, but it certainly existed in 1892 and probably long before that date. Its goal was mostly philanthropic. In 1930, for example, the Circle purchased 53 new hymnals for the church; later it paid for the installation of electric lights in the church parsonage. At first the women met in each others’ homes or in the Community Hall but in later years in the church vestry. During one period the Circle ladies seem to have had literary ambitions. Every other week in 1892 they wrote and read essays and poems on morally uplifting topics. Some of these literary gems still repose among the church records. In more recent years more of the Circle’s time was devoted to sewing aprons and quilts, constructing Christmas wreaths, and making other items for their annual sale. One long-term church member recently commented that during the church’s financially difficult periods, it was largely the Circle’s financial help which kept the church afloat.

Today the major church organization is the Scholarship Committee. Inspired and led by the Reverend DeCoteau and Marion Culbert, since about 1985 members of this group have raised money throughout the years with such activities as craft fairs, flea markets, and the sale of popcorn balls at Christmas, all making it possible for the church to award annual college scholarships to deserving young people.

On the last Sunday in August each year, the church sponsors an unusual event, the Joe Holden Picnic, which never fails to draw the interest of local newspaper reporters. In 1900 Joe Holden, a local mill owner who had gained wide notoriety for his view that the earth is flat, bequeathed a fund for an annual Sunday School picnic. In 1977 William S. Spurr, the town historian, further supported the picnic by his bequest of  a sum for strawberry ice cream, popcorn, and peanuts to be served.

About 2008 interim minister Danford Carr (2007-09) was the force behind a new venture for the church, a series of  free suppers. These “Getting to Know You” suppers have proved a popular – and delicious – new means of introducing the church to others in the community.  

In recent years the church has demonstrated its social commitment and its willingness to practice what it preaches outside the walls of the church and beyond the bounds of the town. For several years the church has hosted a successful picnic for residents of Oxford Hills nursing homes, now held at the Otisfield Community Hall. Moving even farther afield, beginning about 1988 the Otisfield Baptists have sent aid and several of its members to join individuals from many other churches to help build a church and hospital at La Romana in the Dominican Republic. Their experiences as overseas missionaries have helped La Romana physically and materially and have spiritually enriched the Otisfield church.

Then in 2002,  responding to a plea from Henry Hamilton, then doing relief work in Afghanistan, church members dipped into their wallets and provided enough funding to dig two new wells, one at a clinic for women and children which previously had lacked water altogether. The delighted Henry sent back photos of the wells, including signs which read  “Gift of the East Otisfield Free Baptist Church, Otisfield, Maine.”

Changing fortunes and renewed growth

In 1840, just twelve years after the Baptists and Methodists built the union church in East Otisfield, the town’s population peaked at 1307, a mark not surpassed until late in the twentieth century. In 1840 the village of Rayville was a busy place, with a number of small industries providing employment, income, and amenities for the families of the area. After this time, however, better opportunities for farming in the Midwest and for industries in the developing cities slowly but steadily depleted Otisfield’s population. The exodus of people from town contributed to a decline in church membership which was not reversed until well after World War II.

Looking backwards, it appears that one of the church’s high points may have been from about 1866-1880. Unfortunately, we have no membership or attendance records for this period. But the church must have been in a flourishing state, because in 1866, just after the end of the Civil War, the Baptists were able to afford the substantial remodeling of the church building. Church attendance was probably high. The late 1800s witnessed intermittent religious revivals which periodically swept new members into the churches. During one such revival in 1878, Otisfield farmer Albert Kemp (1832-1883) kept a journal of his own spiritual awakening and that of his wife Sarah which gives us a sense of the church’s strength. Nearly every day for over a month the Kemps attended religious meetings at the Baptist church, at members’ homes, and at the Wardwellville schoolhouse. On November 11, Albert wrote that his burden was finally lifted, that he “received a free pardon” of his sins. On December 20, the couple were baptized in the cold water of Saturday Pond. He recorded the event: “Repaired to the water, it snowed quite fast. Elder Johnson baptized wife and myself and we received a great blessing.”

The vitality of the church can be measured in another way, by number of formal members. In 1884, the first year for which figures are available, membership of the East Otisfield Free Baptist Church was a robust 72. But as the town’s population fell to 581 in 1920, the church’s members also dwindled, down to 41 in 1926, perhaps the all-time low water mark. Some remember Sundays when only six or eight people attended services. On some occasions the church treasurer had to dip into her own money to pay the pastor’s weekly salary. Attendance was often better in the summer, especially during the years when the boys from Great Oaks Camp walked down to the church and filled up the first four rows of the center section.

Even though the church’s resources were limited, ministers had to be paid and the church building heated and maintained. The Otisfield Baptists found some new ways to manage. From 1926 to 1930, the Baptists and the Congregationalists at Spurr’s Corners held joint services during the summer at the Bell Hill meetinghouse, which the Congregationalists had stopped using in 1887 in favor of the newer church at Spurr’s Corner, dedicated in 1871. During the spring and fall from 1926 to 1930 the Baptists continued to meet in their own building; in the winter they met at the Community Hall in East Otisfield, presumably to save on heating costs. And at other times before Rayville road was paved, the Baptists met at the Community Hall in order to avoid the mud on Rayville Road. In 1930 the Congregational and Baptist Churches of Otisfield united to form the Lake Thompson United Parish, a union that lasted until 1934.

A new era in inter-church cooperation began in 1943 when the East Otisfield Baptist Church and the Oxford Congregational Church inaugurated a long era of cooperative ministry. For thirty-six years, until 1979, the two churches supported a single minister to serve both churches. Some of the seven pastors who served the joint ministry in this period were Congregationalist; some were Baptist. This cooperative arrangement meant that the Sunday services had to be timed very strictly. One Otisfield oldtimer remembers, for example, that the Baptist services were never more than forty-five minutes long, because immediately after the last word of the benediction, the pastor had to rush off to minister to the Congregationalists in Oxford.

Once the joint ministry ended, it was difficult to find a pastor who would stay more than two or three years with  the salary the small church could afford. Yet in 1984 the Reverend Gertrude DeCoteau was installed as church pastor, a position she held successfully until her death in 2007. A vital and beloved part of the community as well as the church, she left the church in a position far stronger than it had been at the start of her ministry.

Gertrude’s sudden passing left the church with an immediate and crucial problem, that of finding someone to fill the pulpit and lead the church until a new pastor could be found. Once again the Otisfield Baptists proved their mettle. The church officers and deacons especially stepped up to the task,  led by Patricia Dyer Haggerty who served as lay preacher for  many months before and after Gertrude’s death. The church was also most fortunate to have the services from 2007 to 2009 of the Reverend Danford Carr and his wife, Janet. Dan quickly filled the emotional vacuum left by Gertrude’s absence. Together he and Jan spread the message of hope and renewal so necessary for a congregation in transition.

The last seventy-five years, including the last of the twentieth century and the start of the twenty-first, have meant more changes in American society, the town, and the church. One of the biggest changes is that the town’s population has climbed well over the level it reached about 1840 and now is close to the two thousand mark. Another change, the spread of the automobile, has made the trip to church, and other places, faster and easier. At the same time, the population of Otisfield, like that of America as a whole, is far more diverse. Women have left the home to become better educated and to provide more resources for their families. As the twenty-first century develops, we find not only that there are more churches competing for worshippers on Sunday, but also that more secular and recreational activities compete with the churches.

All these changes have produced an East Otisfield Free Baptist Church which differs considerably from the one where our predecessors worshipped. It is hard now to imagine how anyone today would even notice, much less comment, as they did in 1945, on the fact that the new minister’s wife was not wearing a hat! In 1984, nearly forty years after this early demonstration of feminine independence, the installation of the Reverend Gertrude DeCoteau as the church’s first woman pastor signalled a change not just in church leadership but in society as a whole. And doubtless our ancestors would have not understood the ecumenical spirit exemplified by the singing of a Jewish rabbi at the installation service for  her successor, the  Reverend Genise Knowlton, in 2009.

Just as important was the growth in church membership  during the Reverend DeCoteau’s tenure. By 2010, the number of formal members had risen from a low of 41 in 1926 to about 100. That figure is close to a record high. Perhaps an even more important change is in the composition of the congregation. Through the World War II period, transportation difficulties meant that nearly all those attending lived in Otisfield, especially East Otisfield, but the congregation now includes those who walk to church as well as those who drive from Casco, Oxford, and Norway.

At the same time, the Free Baptist Church has continued to follow the liberal tradition of the early Free Will Baptists who preached the possibility of universal salvation and followed the practice of open communion. Tolerance for those of other faiths has resulted in the fact that today’s congregation embraces those of diverse religious backgrounds.

Through the ages all the Baptists of Otisfield have sung God’s praises, beginning back in the days when the town was part of Massachusetts and they needed written permission to worship as Baptists. The simple white church building in Rayville, built by Methodists and Baptists together, now belongs only to the Baptists, but, now as then, welcomes churchgoers of all faiths. As in the days gone by, the East Otisfield Free Baptist Church continues to represent a spirit of tolerance and of religious cooperation, a proud part both of community and of the world of Christ.   

Sources

Sources for this history include William S. Spurr, A History of Otisfield  (c. 1950); William G. McLoughlin, Soul Liberty (1991); I. D. Stewart, History of the Freewill Baptists (1862), Norman A. Baxter, History of the Freewill Baptists (1957); Granville Fernald, Looking Backward in Otisfield, No. 3 (1912); Donald H. Mills, “East Otisfield Baptist Church,” unidentified newspaper clipping (Sun-Journal, 1966?), Proceedings of the Maine Free Baptist Association; Bicentennial Historical Papers_, American Baptist Churches of N.H._ (1980?), Otisfield Congregational Church Records; Clerk’s Books, East Otisfield Free Baptist Church; the Church Book of Remembrance; Diaries of Mary Pride Knight and of Pliny Henley, copies at Otisfield Historical Society; Diary of Albert Kemp, private; interviews with many church members, including Amy and Earl Andrews, Gertrude DeCoteau, John and Hazel Raymond, Marian Culbert, Priscilla Delehanty, Pearl Peaco, Ellis Stone, and David Hankins. Walt Putnam took the photos for this revised edition

Elders and pastors, 1804–2010

This chronology ends in 2010. “Present” reflects that point in the history, not the current pastorate. Question marks in the original dates are retained.