Pennepack Baptist Church, Founded 1688
Near Trenton, Pennsylvania
The Pennepack Baptist Church was founded in sixteen eighty-eight by Welsh and English Baptists led by Reverend Elias Keach, who came to Pennsylvania drawn by the promise of William Penn's tolerant colony. It became the first permanent Baptist congregation in Pennsylvania and is said to have helped seed Baptist communities across the mid-Atlantic region.
The nearby Pennypack Creek was used for baptisms, following the tradition of full-immersion worship the congregation brought from England and Wales. The church building standing today was constructed in eighteen oh five, but it rises on the original seventeen oh seven meetinghouse foundation, meaning this ground has held continuous worship for well over three centuries. Few congregations in Pennsylvania carry a longer unbroken history.
