Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. Excerpt from book: Section 3CHAPTER I. MIDDLETOWN AND HOLMDEL CHURCHES 1067-8 Why associate these Churches as one? Because the body now known as Middletown Church, derives its name from the village in which it is. But Middletown Church originally included a vast territory, while the present Church is wholly local. Further, nearly till of the constituents of the Church settled at Baptisttown, (Holmdel)— Stouts, Holmes, Bownes, Grover, Lawrence. Ashton, the first pastor, settled West of Holmdel. Coxes, Cheesmans and Mounts located at Upper Freehold, making Holmdel the center of the Church. The first house of worship and parsonage were at Holmdel, where the pastors lived until 1826. The second house of worship and parsonage were also built there. The "yearly meetings," originally held between Middletown and Piscataway, were held only at Holmdcl and Upper Freehold; never at Middletown village, it being distant from Baptist families. At Middletown village a town hall was built and used for worship until 1732, when Baptists built a church edifict. Rev. John Burrows gave a lot on which to build a house of worship. Pastor Ashton was the first Baptist minister in New Jersey and preached the first sermon at the house of John Stout, Sr., near Baptisttown (Holmdel). His wife, Penelope Stout, was buried in textit{a. family cemetery on her husband's farm. It h;is been long since lost in a field. The absolute oneness of these churches prior to 1836 is shown in their record. That at Middletown village is essentially involved in that at Holmdel. Both Cohansie through Obadiah Holmes, Jr., and first Hopevvcll through John Stout, Jr., and his brother James originated in Baptisttown (Holmdel). Middletown, the earliest Baptist church south of Rhode Island was constituted in 1667-8. Some, who clai'med to know, insisted that in 1664-5 was its beginn...