The congregation started as a
Sunday school run by
Harriet Bishop in 1847. She came from
Vermont to the St. Paul area, still a part of
Wisconsin Territory before
Minnesota Territory was organized, after hearing that there were about thirty children who had no school or teacher. The school was originally located in an old blacksmith shop, which she described as "a mud-walled log hovel covered with bark and chinked with mud." A new schoolhouse was built on Jackson Street. On February 8, 1849, the Reverend John Parsons was appointed as a missionary to St. Paul. He preached in the schoolhouse at the start. On December 29, 1849, the church formally organized itself. They made immediate plans to build a church on "Baptist Hill", now part of
Mears Park. The congregation needed more money than they could raise locally, so Parsons traveled east to
New York in 1851 to raise donations. Unfortunately he was
robbed in New York City, and he lost the entire amount of $2,300 that he had raised. He spent a couple months recovering his injuries, then set out to return to St. Paul. He died on a riverboat north of
St. Louis, Missouri. His funeral was the first service held in the newly built church, which was financed by loans raised in anticipation of Parsons' funds. In 1857 Baptist Hill was graded down to the same level as the surrounding area, leaving the small church above its surroundings. The congregation looked for a new site and built a new church on Wacouta Street, which opened on January 1, 1862. This was a larger stone structure, but the rapidly expanding community outgrew its second structure.
William W. Boyington of
Chicago was commissioned to design a new building, located nearby at the corner of Ninth and Wacouta. ==References==