Rev. William Hiscox, of RI

NOT the same as William Hiscock, of Damariscotta of Maine.

• H. William Hiscox1638 - 1704
• W. Rebecca Unknown Abt 1656 -

m. Abt 1684

• Elizabeth Hiscox Bef 1683 -
• Thomas Hiscox 1686 - 1773

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https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/KCR9-S45/william-hiscox-1638-...

Rev William Hiscox Notes

1. Religion: Seventh-day Baptist
2. Note: The Seventh-dey Baptist arose in England soon after the reformation. 'In 1665, Mr. Stephen Mumford, a Seventh-day Baptist, came from England to Newport, RI and soon Mr. Samuel Hubbard, a Baptist, embraced his views; others soon embraced the same doctrine and in 1671, the first Seventh-day Baptist church in America was organized, of which William Hiscox became the first pastor. Several laws were, however, enacted against them. John Rogers, a minister of this church, was sentenced to wait a certain time upon a gallows with a rope about his neck.' History of all Religions, p70.

Welcome to the Seventh Day Baptist

Meeting House

In the 1660s, seven members of the First Baptist Church of Newport became convinced that the Ten Commandments should be obeyed literally, and began to observe the Sabbath on Saturday, the seventh day of the week. In 1671, they withdrew, formed the Seventh Day Baptist Church, and chose William Hiscox as their first pastor. The freedom to act on doctrinal differences such as these was possible in Rhode Island because religious toleration had formed the foundation for this unusual New England colony.

The Seventh Day Baptists built a small meeting house on Barney Street sometime before 1712. By 1729, however, they had outgrown this home, and, it is believed, they employed Richard Munday, fresh from completing Newport's Trinity Church in 1726, to design a new building for them. Although no documentary evidence survives of Munday's involvement, the design and details of the Seventh Day Baptist Meeting House are so similar to Trinity Church as to make it almost certain.

The new building, erected in 1730, was laid out in the "meeting house plan," typical of many colonial churches in the 17th century. The members of these churches were intent on purifying the excesses of the Church of England and the Catholic Church, and their reforming zeal was also directed at church architecture. The meeting house plan avoided any suggestion of the crucifix, the heart of the floorplan of the Catholic churches and cathedrals of Europe. Instead, the Seventh Day Baptists built a simple, almost square building that looked like a modest house from the outside. The door was on the long side of the building and the pulpit was on the opposite wall facing the door. The room was filled with box pews. Two aisles down either side completed the symmetry of the floorplan.

NHS P1580