First Baptist Church | |
Location: | 727 Scotland St. |
Coordinates: | 37.2742°N -76.7111°W |
Architect: | Bernard Spigel |
Architecture: | Colonial Revival |
Added: | June 5, 2017 |
Area: | less than one acre |
Refnum: | 100001050 |
The First Baptist Church is a historic church at 727 Scotland Road in Williamsburg, Virginia. It is a brick Colonial Revival structure, built in 1956 to a design by Norfolk architect Bernard Spigel. It is of only two known church designs by Spigel.
The congregation was founded in the 1770s as a non-denominational group of free and enslaved African-Americans, and became officially Baptist in 1781. At the time of its founding, African-Americans could not own property; the land had been donated to them by a wealthy white man with the understanding that it would be used as a place of worship.[1] John M. Dawson was a pastor for over forty-five years and was also a Virginia state senator between 1874 and 1877 during the Reconstruction Era.[2]
Located for many years in a church on Nassau Street, it was relocated by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation to its present location at the foundation's expense.[3]
The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.