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Editor's note: These are excerpts from Henry C. Vedder's A Short History of the Baptists.

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John Gano
By Henry C. Vedder

[p. 207]

"John Gano, at that time pastor of the church at Morristown, preached at several stations near-by, and relates the following: "At one of these places there was a happy instance of a promising youth (by name Hezekiah Smith), who professed to be converted, and joined the church -- who appeared to have an inclination for education, to which his parents objected. His eldest brother joined me in soliciting his father, who finally consented to his receiving an education."

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[p. 211]

The first Calvinistic Baptist church in the colony of New York was formed about 1740, at Fishkill, Dutchess County, and from 1753 a small company of Baptists held meetings in a private house. Not strong enough to form a church, they became members of the church at Scotch Plains, N.J., and were not constituted a separate church until 1762. By this time they had become twenty-seven in number, had built themselves a small house of worship in Gold Street, and had called the Rev. John Gano to be their pastor. Other churches were formed in the Dutchess region and its vicinity, to the number of ten in all, prior to 1780. From this time onward progress was quite rapid in the eastern and central counties of the State. For a time most of these churches sought and obtained membership in the Philadelphia Association, and it was not until 1791 that they felt themselves strong enough to form an Association of their own.

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[p. 213]

Thus, soon after the organization of the South Carolina Association, they sent North for a missionary preacher, and secured the Rev. John Gano, afterward pastor of the First Baptist Church of New York, and a man of note in his day. His labors in the interior of the State resulted in the establishment of several churches and the organization of the Congaree Association. But for the most part this evangelization was the work of men who were not sent forth, but went forth to preach in obedience to a divine call.
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[From Henry C. Vedder, A Short History of the Baptists, 1907. — jrd]

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