Mount Elvin Baptist Church sits quietly on a minor knoll off Hindustan Road on the outskirts of New Grant in southern Trinidad. It is an unpretentious church and nevertheless it can be deemed the epicenter of the Baptist faith in Trinidad and Tobago. This church was set up in 1816 and the importance of that date has to do with the settlement of the “Merikens” in Trinidad in that 12 months.

In 1816 demobilized Africans who experienced served in the British Military throughout the War of 1812 amongst the British and the Americans had been settled in Trinidad in what arrived to be recognized as the Business Villages. According to A.B. Huggins in his guide “the Saga of the Firms” the expression “Merikens” arose due to the fact these folks could not effectively pronounce the letter A in American. John McNish Weiss in his paper “The Corps of Colonial Marines” suggests that these “Merikin” soldiers ended up slaves in the United states who were promised their flexibility if they fought for the British. Recruited by the British first in Maryland and Virginia and afterwards in Georgia, they were a combating unit significantly praised for valor and discipline.

When the British Military companies left for residence in England in April 1815, the 6 Black firms became the 3rd Battalion Colonial Marines, garrisoned in Bermuda on Ireland Island. baptist church in Raleigh did garrison duty and labored as artisans and laborers in the building of the new Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda. When transfer to the West India Regiments was proposed the guys rejected the notion. Their persistent intransigence ultimately led the British authorities to supply to place them in Trinidad as unbiased farmers. On accepting the provide they remaining Bermuda on 15 July 1816.The very first group of 71 settled in Dunmore Hill and Mount Elvin while the second group of 72 settled in Indian Stroll.

These were religious individuals who adopted the Baptist religion practiced in the southern United States. Though there have been no clergymen among them there were five gentlemen who have been explained as Anabaptist preachers who held Sunday ceremonies. 1 of these gentlemen was acknowledged as Brother Will Hamilton. In 1808 the London Missionary Society (Baptist) despatched personnel to Guyana and Tobago and in 1809 a single of them, Thomas Adam, relocated to Trinidad. He and later Reverend George Cowen whilst doing work on the establishment of St John’s Baptist Church in Port of Spain Trinidad also gave support to these African-American ex-slaves who were training a version of the Baptist faith. In time, the similarities of the religion led to the adoption of the missionaries’ variation of the Baptist faith that came to be known as in Trinidad, London Baptist.

In excess of time however, according to Ashram Stapleton in his ebook “The Delivery and Progress of the Baptist Church in Trinidad and Tobago”, there designed a schism as some individuals in the church wanted certain African methods incorporated and the London Missionary Culture frowned on individuals practices. At some point these folks left the church and were very first referred to as the “Disobedient Baptists” and ultimately the Non secular or Shouter Baptist. Other differences inside the London Baptists then led to further variants of the Baptist faith with the advancement of the Impartial Baptists and the Essential Baptists.