must we err in
thinking that the first churches of this faith were planted in the
North. It is true that there were Negro Baptists in Providence, Rhode
Island, as early as 1774,[1] and doubtless much earlier, but they had
no church of their own. Indeed, there is absolutely no trace of Negro
Baptist churches in the North prior to the nineteenth century. The
oldest Negro Baptist churches, north of Mason and Dixon's Line, are
the Independent or First African Baptist Church, of Boston,
Massachusetts, planted in 1805; the Abysinnian, of New York City,
established in 1808; and the First African, of Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, organized in 1809.[2]

Negro Baptist churches, unlike other Negro churches, had their
beginning in the South, and at a somewhat earlier date. The first
church of Negro Baptists, so far as authentic and trustworthy writings
of the eighteenth century establish, was constituted at Silver
Bluff,[3] on Mr. Galphin's[4] estate, a year or two before the
Revolutionary War. It continued to worship there, in comparative
peace, until the latter part of 1778, when the vicissitudes of war
drove the church into exile[5]--but only to multiply itself
elsewhere.[6] The work at Silver Bluff began anew with the cessation
of hostilities, moreover, and was more prosperous than ever in
1791.[7]

Silver Bluff was situated on the South Carolina side of the Savannah
River, in Aiken County, just twelve miles from Augusta, Georgia.[8]
All there was of it, in September, 1775, seems to have been embraced
in what William Tennett, of Revolutionary fame, styled "Mr. Galphin's
Settlement."[9] Nevertheless, as it lay in the tract of the
Revolutionary forces, and was for a time a center of supplies to the
Indians, who had their habitation in that quarter, living in treaty
relations with the colonists, Ramsey, Carroll, Drayton,[10] and
others, give it a place on the map of South Carolina. Indeed, so
identified was Silver Bluff with the Galphins, their interests and
their influence, that by 1785 it was known far and near as Galphinton.
Fort Galphin was there. Bartram, who visited it in 1776, says that
Silver Bluff was "a very celebrated place," and describes it as "a
beautiful villa," while the picture which Jones, in his history of
South Carolina, gives of Silver Bluff, is animating, to say the
least.[11]

David George, who was one of the constituent members, and the first
regular pastor of the Silver Bluff Church, is our authority in