gone into exile, had produced little
effect.

In 1682 William Screven (1629-1713) and Humphrey Churchwood, members of the
Boston church, gathered and organized, With the co-operation of the mother
church, a small congregation at Kittery, Me. Persecution led to migration,
Screven and some of the members making their way to South Carolina, where,
with a number of English Baptists of wealth and position, what became the
First Baptist church in Charleston, was organized (about 1684). This became
one of the most important of early Baptist centres, and through Screven's
efforts Baptist principles became widely disseminated throughout that
region. The withdrawal of members to form other churches in the
neighbourhood and the intrusion of Socinianism almost extinguished the
Charleston church about 1746.

A few Baptists of the general (Arminian) type appeared in Virginia from
1714 onward, and were organized and fostered by missionaries from the
English General Baptists. By 1727 they had invaded North Carolina and a
church was constituted there.

From 1643 onward antipaedobaptists from New England and elsewhere had
settled in the New Netherlands (New York). Lady Deborah Moody left
Massachusetts for the New Netherlands in 1643 because of her
antipaedobaptist views and on her way stopped at New Haven, where she won
to her principles Mrs Eaton, the wife of the governor, Theophilus Eaton.
She settled at Gravesend (now part of Brooklyn) having received from the
Dutch authorities a guarantee of religious liberty. Francis Doughty, an
English Baptist, who had spent some time in Rhode Island, laboured in this
region in 1656 and baptized a number of converts. This latter proceeding
led to his banishment. Later in the same year William Wickenden of
Providence evangelized and administered the ordinances at Flushing, but was
heavily fined and banished. From 1711 onward Valentine Wightman (1681-1747)
of Connecticut (General Baptist) made occasional missionary visits to New
York at the invitation of Nicolas Eyres, a business man who had adopted
Baptist views, and in 1714 baptized Eyres and several others, and assisted
them in organizing a church. The church was well-nigh wrecked (1730) by
debt incurred in the erection of a meeting-house. A number of Baptists
settled on Block Island about 1663. Some time before 1724 a Baptist church
(probably Arminian) was formed at Oyster Bay.

The Quaker colonies, with their large measure of religious libert