Three hundred metres south of Beaver River Corner, on the east side of Highway 1, a sign marks the former site of a Free Will Baptist meetinghouse that was built about 1852. The meetinghouse almost certainly served two Beaver River congregations, those of the Free Christian Baptists and of the Free Will Baptists. This is the story of these congregations and their shared meetinghouse.

As was the case elsewhere in Nova Scotia, the Beaver River Free Baptist congregations differed primarily as to whether their origins could be traced to the Free Will Baptist churches organized in New England by Elder Benjamin Randall, of New Durham, New Hampshire, or to the New Light churches organized by Elder Henry Alline, the traveling preacher from Falmouth, Nova Scotia. In contrast to the Calvinistic Baptists,

1. “The Free Baptists did not hold to the main doctrine of Calvin, but taught that all people were free moral agents after they came to years of understanding, and therefore responsible for their acts, and that their future state was neither determined or certain, so they must watch and pray; they practised a communion that was not restricted to their own church members.” [1, p. 27]
   

To achieve efficiencies of organization and coordination, in June 1837 the Free Will Baptist and Free Christian Baptist churches agreed to unite in one conference under the name Free Christian Baptists. The arrangement was brokered by a small group of Baptist preachers that included Elder Asa McGray, from the Free Will Baptist church at Cape Sable Island, and Elder Jacob Norton, who organized Free Christian Baptist churches at Argyle, Yarmouth, and many places in Kings County. [2, p. 400]

Subsequently, however, problems arose.

1. “Owing to lack of fellowship between Elders McGray and Norton, and failure of means employed to reconcile them, Elder McGray declared himself free to take the former name of Free Will Baptist. Most of the Cape Island church took the same position, uniting with him Sept. 24th, 1839. A formal reorganization of the [Cape Sable Island] church was had in connection with the Farmington quarterly meeting, in Maine, USA, May 5th, 1840.” [2, p. 400]
   

The action then moved to Beaver River.

1. “In 1841 Elders Kinsman R. and Isaac G. Davis came from the United States and laboured on Cape Sable Island and in other places. A great revival at Beaver River, under the labours of Rev. K. R. Davis, resulted in the organization of a church of fifty members in the autumn of this year. Elders Mark Atwood and Moses Henderson came from the United States in 1842, and laboured several years. Revivals took place; they added a large number to Beaver River church; other churches were formed. In 1843, a quarterly meeting was organized in connection with the Maine Central yearly meeting.”
   

Free Will Baptist churches from Beaver River, Cape Sable Island, and Woods Harbour participated in that quarterly meeting. [2, pp. 400–401]

The residents of Beaver River continued to be receptive to Baptist proselytism. Sometime before 1846 a Free Christian Baptist church was organized for Beaver River and Cedar Lake (as one congregation). [1, p. 36] Finally, a Calvinistic Baptist church was organized in Beaver River in August 1846. All three Baptist churches probably held their meetings at a small Beaver River union meetinghouse until 1852, when the Corning, Perry, and Porter families, with others, built a Free Will Baptist meetinghouse at the site shown above.

Although the Free Will and Free Christian Baptist congregations probably shared the new meetinghouse, they were plagued by problems of accreditation.

1. “In 1853 the Free Will Baptist church at Beaver River was dropped from [the Free Will Baptist quarterly meeting’s] list of churches, and the church seems either in whole or part to have joined the Free Christian Baptists. About 1862 Elder Charles Oram was excluded from the Free Christian Baptist Conference. In that year he gathered 32 of his friends at Beaver River into a church which was received into the Free Will Baptist Quarterly meeting.” [1, p. 36]
   

The year 1865 marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of the failed attempt to unite the Free Will Baptists and the Free Christian Baptists. Elder Asa McGray, who caused the 1840 disunion, had died in 1843, while “the remaining pioneers and the new leaders on both sides saw that in union was strength, and that especial blessing might be looked for thereby in the communities where churches of both names were established.” In September 1866 the last General Conference of the Free Christian Baptists was held at Canning, Cornwallis, where a Basis of Union was proposed to the Free Will Baptist quarterly meeting. In November 1866 the proposed Basis of Union was accepted at the last quarterly meeting of the Free Will Baptists, held at Pubnico. On 29 November 1866, at a special convention at Barrington, it was resolved and agreed

1. “That we, the Free Will Baptists, and Free Christian Baptists, in the Province of Nova Scotia, do now form ourselves into a yearly meeting, to be known by the name of the Free Baptist Conference of Nova Scotia.”
   

This new body included seven Free Will Baptist and 27 Free Christian Baptist churches. [2, pp. 402–403]

The Beaver River Free Baptist church flourished during the last third of the nineteenth century. In 1864 the Free Christian Baptist church had reported 163 members with 120 scholars attending Sunday school. In 1874 the Free Baptist church reported 237 members, and the number had risen to 312 by 1880. By 1905 the membership had fallen to 132, in part because the members from Cedar Lake had left the Beaver River congregation to organize a Free Baptist church at Cedar Lake. [1, p. 36]

Finally, in 1905, the United Baptist Convention of the Maritime Provinces was formed by a union of Free Baptist and Calvinistic Baptist churches. Consequently the Beaver River Free Baptist church joined the Bay View Baptist Church of Port Maitland and Beaver River, the result being named the Bay View United Baptist Church. In 1906 the old, now vacant, Free Baptist meetinghouse in Beaver River was torn down and the salvaged materials sold to John Hall. [3, pp. 80, 59]

Fig. 1. The new Baptist church at Port Maitland. (Illustration from the Yarmouth Light, 5 Oct. 1893, p. 2.)

References and Notes

   [1] Frederick C. Burnett, “Free Baptist Churches in the County of Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.” The Argus 6(1), pp. 26–36, 1994; part 2 in The Argus 6(2), pp. 27–36, 1994.

   [2] Edward Manning Saunders, History of the Baptists of the Maritime Provinces. Press of John Burgoyne, Granville Street, Halifax, NS, 1902. xxvi+520 pp.

   [3] High Hopes Senior Citizens Club (compiler), Historical Trails Through Port Maitland, Beaver River, Sandford, Short Beach, Darling’s Lake. Sentinel Printing Ltd., Yarmouth, N.S., 1985. 299 pp.