Thomas Nicholas Swigle: Church Growth by Division

Thomas Nicholas Swigle (sometimes spelt Sweigle) was a free “coloured man” who was born in Jamaica. He is the first Jamaica-born person to serve as minister in a Baptist Church that became a part of the Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU). Much of what we know about him derives from his correspondence with the John Rippon, with whom Swigle was in correspondence.

Rippon (1751-1836) was an English Baptist minister who trained for the ministry at Bristol Baptist College and became pastor of the Carter Lane Baptist Church – now, Metropolitan Tabernacle – in Southwark, London. He was, for 12 years, the editor of Baptist Annual Register whose full name was The Baptist Annual Register; including sketches of the state of religion among different denominations of good men at home and abroad. The Baptist Annual Register is an invaluable source of early documentation concerning Baptist work in several countries including Jamaica. Thomas Swigle was a frequent writer to John Rippon, who published correspondence from Liele, Baker and Swigle in The Register.

Swigle was one of the members of the Windward Road Chapel, the first Baptist church formed by George Liele in Jamaica. Liele administered Swigle’s baptism and, according to Swigle’s letter to Ripon dated April 12, 1793: “Our beloved minister by consent of the church, appointed me deacon, schoolmaster, and his principal helper.”

During Liele’s second period of imprisonment on the false charge of seditious preaching, Swigle led the Windward Road congregation. After Liele returned to his former position, disagreements threatened to disrupt the unity of the church.  Liele wanted his son, Paul, to become his “principal helper” in the church, instead of Swigle. In that capacity, Paul would lead the church in Liele’s upcoming planned absence on a visit to England. Liele’s intention occasioned controversy and it resulted in Liele’s decision to expel Swigle from the church in 1801.

Together with some of the leaders at the Windward Road Chapel, who believed Swigle had been treated unfairly, Swigle separated from Liele and formed and served as the leader of a new church – the St. John’s Chapel, now the East Queen Street Baptist Church. The separation of Liele and Swigle led to the extension of Baptist witness in Kingston, where Baptist work grew by division. St John’s Chapel which has had an outstanding ministry over the years, and has outlived the Windward Road Chapel, was the second Baptist church in Kingston.

The new church acquired its own meeting-house and within a few years, attendance there reached 500. In a letter written in 1802, Swigle reported that “since becoming pastor, he had baptised one hundred and eleven persons, and had about five hundred people in all.” He continued:

 

Our church consists of people of colour and black people; some of free condition, but the greater part of them are slaves and natives from the different countries of Africa .... We have five trustees to our chapel and a burying-ground, eight deacons and six exhorters [lay preachers].

Swigle followed Liele’s example at the Windward Road Chapel and established a free school in connection with St. John’s chapel. Admission was open to both enslaved and free persons.

Swigle was deeply committed to spreading the Gospel and, unsurprisingly, he gathered some members of his church who worked on the Clifton Mount coffee plantation with others who lived in the vicinity “in the parish of St Andrew, about sixteen miles from Kingston, in the High Mountains” and formed them into a church, whose membership in 1802 was 254, when Swigle wrote to Ripon on October 9, that year. It is unclear exactly which church was the Clifton Mt. Church, and it is possible the church was in what is now called Constitution Hill. A reference to Clifton Mount Baptist Church in Ernest Price’s 1930 book, Bananaland: Pages from the Chronicles of an English Minister in Jamaica, does not definitively identify the identity of the Clifton Mount Church, which was already had gained association with the Jones Town Church before Price was that church’s pastor.

After the separation from Liele and his “Chapel” Swigle had a thriving ministry so much so that he could say to Ripon in a letter dated May 1, 1802, “Our place of worship is so much crowded that numbers have to stand out of doors; we are going to build a larger chapel as soon as possible.”

Swigle enjoyed good relations with fellow Baptist leaders in Jamaica. In his April 12, 1793 letter to Rippon, he referred to Liele as “our well-beloved minister, Brother Liele.” The repair of Swigle’s relationship with Liele led to him stating, in his October 9, 1802 letter to Ripon, that: “Myself and brethren were at Mr. Liele’s chapel a few weeks ago at the funeral of one of his elders. He is well and we were friendly together.”

Swigle also enjoyed a positive fraternal relationship with Moses Baker, who once visited him to request his assistance in recruiting someone to establish Baptist witness on a plantation in Westmoreland. Swigle cooperated and released one of his leaders to serve that mission in western Jamaica. More on that particular leader later on.

Swigle was a wonderfully unselfish person and we are indebted to him for much of the information we have concerning several other leaders among Baptists in Jamaica in the first decade of Baptist witness in Jamaica. He refers to John Gilbert, “a free black man who worked in the north of Jamaica.” He mentions James Pascall, a free coloured man. In Swigle’s letter to Rippon, dated July 1, 1802, he wrote about other less known “independent evangelists,” describing them as “men of few gifts, but of real consecration,” whose work prepared the way for those who later served the Baptist cause in Jamaica. According to Swigle’s letter of May 1, 1802, “Brothers Baker, Gilbert, and others of the Africans are going on wonderfully in the Lord’s service, in the interior part of the country.”

 When Swigle died in 1811, Jamaica lost one of its formidable Baptist leaders who helped blaze the trail for many Jamaican pastors who were to follow him in serving God’s mission through the Baptist churches in Jamaica. We thank God for Swigle’s ministry.

Moses Baker: From Barber to Preacher

Little is known about Moses Baker’s early life. What we know is that he was born a free man in New York, where he grew up and earned a living as a barber. A mulatto, Baker was not born into slavery; nor was he ever enslaved. On September 4, 1778, Baker married Susannah Ashton, a dressmaker. The union produced three children – Polly, Charles and John. When the British Loyalists evacuated New York in 1783, the then three-member Baker family – father, mother and Polly – joined the migrants heading to Jamaica. Baker was not willing to risk his family being enslaved or persecuted in the wake of the British withdrawal after the American revolutionary war.

While in New York, Baker had had some connection with the Anglican Church, but he was neither a committed Christian nor an ardent church member. In fact, by his own confession, Baker led a dissolute life marked by excessive drinking.

According to Baker, after arriving in Jamaica in 1783, he spent his first four years living “in utter disregard of religion.” He opened a small barber shop in Kingston and later secured land where he engaged in farming to supplement his income. The land he farmed belonged to a Quaker named Isaac Lascelles Winn. Winn had association with several estates in Jamaica. He owned Stretch and Sell (Adelphi) in St James and he was attorney for Malvern Park Pen in St Ann. He was also connected to Mammee Bay Estate in St Ann and apparently also the Buff Bay plantation in the parish of St George (now Portland).

In earlier years, Winn had been a sea captain who had made frequent calls at American ports. Susannah had met Winn whom her mother had served as a washer woman in New York. Winn expressed deep satisfaction when Susannah Baker filled an order of gowns for him when she lived in Kingston.

Baker’s wife began to read the Bible when she came under the influence of Cupid Wilkin, an elderly black man from Chamba country in Africa – that is, the region covering eastern Nigeria and northeastern Cameroon. It was through Wilkin’s patient and persistent witness that Susannah Baker committed her life to Christ. After a series of developments, ending with Moses Baker’s failing eyesight and serious illness, Wilkin’s impact on Baker resulted in the barber and his wife beginning to associate with George Liele and his Windward Road Chapel in Kingston. This led to Baker’s eventual personal acceptance of God’s claim upon his life. Liele administered Baker’s baptism and Liele found in him a gifted and reliable partner in ministry.

When Winn became aware of Baker’s illness, he paid for Baker’s medical help that resulted in considerable improvement to Baker’s health. However, Winn was unable to donate the plot of land that Baker desired because Winn planned to sell the entire estate and relocate to St James. Meanwhile, Winn acquired some of the enslaved persons who were associated with Liele’s church. These Christians were deeply concerned that, after relocation from Kingston, they would be deprived of the opportunity to enjoy church membership. In response to this, Winn invited the Bakers to join him at his property in St James. There, Winn would hire Mr Baker “to instruct his negroes [on his estate] in the principles of the Christian religion.” He would also provide land for the Baker’s use and Mrs. Baker could work as a seamstress for the enslaved people on his plantation.

Starting in 1788, the Bakers took up residence on the estate in Hampstead that was registered as Stretch and Sell, and was sometimes referred as Stretch and Set. It was near Adelphi in the parish of St. James and there, Baker formed the first Baptist church in western Jamaica at Crooked Spring. At a later stage, the church became known as Salters Hill Baptist Church.

Baker attracted the ire of some of the planters in western Jamaica who believed he should not have been allowed to impart Christianity to the enslaved people. They made life hard for Baker. These slaveholders or their agents hauled him before the courts for using a hymn deemed seditious. They also set fire to homes where Baker conducted prayer meetings. Despite these and other hardships, Baker remained constant in ministry in western and central Jamaica and God blessed his efforts with success. Many enslaved persons turned to God and adhered to congregations Baker started. On one occasion, he baptized more than one hundred persons at a single church service.

In his Lights and Shadows of Jamaica History, Richard Hill, who was a member of Her Majesty’s Privy Council for Jamaica offered a description of Baker. Hill said, “Age came, and with it came the cloud again on the vision of the old missionary. His mind was, nevertheless, still radiant…. Such was Moses Baker after thirty-two years of missionary service. He had come to visit my father and bid him farewell when departing with his family, for England, in 1813. He appeared a plain home-spun man; rugged as a honeycomb rock; his eyes were then failing; his head was bound with a handkerchief, for he had suffered torture in America, which had injured both his ears and eyes. His appearance was that of no common man. His language was direct, and his demeanour was marked with simplicity.”

In 1802, the Jamaican Legislative Council had enacted legal provisions that expanded the scope of the Consolidated Slave Act that prevented Black or enslaved persons from preaching the Gospel and worshipping together freely. Worship services in some churches were deemed unlawful assemblies.

According to Baker: “From Christmas Day 1806, I have been prevented from preaching or saying a word to any part of my congregation.” When Winn died in 1808, Baker got attached to Samuel Vaughan, doing for the enslaved on Vaughan’s estate the same kind of service he offered on Winn’s estate. Vaughan had plantations at Flamstead, Hamstead and Vaughansfield.

When the Consolidated Slave Laws prevented Baptist preachers from continuing to freely fulfill their ministry, Moses Baker decided to write to John Ryland, principal of Bristol Baptist Academy, later Bristol Baptist College, in England, but also Secretary of BMS, to ask the British Baptists to send workers to assist in the work of Baptists in Jamaica. 

Why did Baker choose to write to Ryland? He did this because, in 1806, Ryland who believed that BMS should send a trained missionary to work in Jamaica, had written to Baker to ask whether, it would be a welcome move for the British Baptists to send a trained missionary to work in Jamaica (Cox, 1842: 18-19; Catherall 1994: 295). Whatever Baker’s response had been to that question, now it was time for him to let Ryland know that, not only would Jamaica Baptists welcome a BMS missionary to Jamaica, but such support was a vital necessity in the context of the adverse effects legislative action by the Jamaican Assembly was having on Baptist witness in the country.

After consulting with George Liele, with whom he had remained in contact, Baker wrote to the English Baptists to ask them to send missionaries to Jamaica in order to overcome the hindrance to the spread of the Gospel among the enslaved people caused by the Consolidated Slave Laws of 1802-1810. In response, the Baptist Missionary Society sent John and Sarah Rowe as their first missionaries to Jamaica. They arrived in the country in 1814, 30 years after African Americans had introduced Baptist witness to Jamaica. John Rowe was commissioned to serve as Baker’s assistant at Flamstead.

As soon as he arrived in Jamaica, Rowe paid a visit to Baker and the two developed friendly and cooperative relations. Unable to secure a license to preach, Rowe went to Falmouth where he established a school. Later, he returned to St James where his outstanding legacy is the Baptist Church in Montego Bay, which now bears his name – Burchell Baptist Church. This church was the church home of one of Jamaica’s national heroes, Baptist deacon Samuel Sharpe. Rowe built up churches that Baker had started and Baker’s son came under Rowe’s influence. When Rowe died in 1816, it was Baker who sent to England an account of his co-worker’s last days.

In 1821, James Coultart, BMS missionary who arrived in Jamaica in 1817, visited Baker, who by then had lost much of his sight. Coultart reports that he found a crowded chapel, and that he examined the negro children who were able to repeat some of Watts’ hymns and other verses. According to Coultart, “Baker was neither superstitious nor enthusiastic …. He possessed good, plain common-sense; he spoke like a spiritual-minded person, and with much feeling. He was decisive and firm in religious discipline; always consistent and influential.”

An additional description of Baker was given by an unnamed Moravian minister who was one of Baker’s contemporaries. “The Baptists have a mission here. Moses Baker, a brown preacher of that community, and my neighbour, living about four miles from hence is a man of the right stamp – a blessed and active servant of our common Lord and Master – notwithstanding old age has almost blinded his eyes and made his legs to move slowly. During his thirty years’ labour in these parts, he has had to endure much.

Baker passed away in 1824, after 36 years of faithful Christian witness in Jamaica.  His mortal remains were interred in the church yard at Crooked Spring in St James.

We treasure the contribution that Moses Baker, his wife and their children made to the emergence and development of Baptist witness in Jamaica – especially in western Jamaica. Long may we remember and celebrate their witness.