Whately — The Baptist Church Of Whately
Extracted from "History of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts, Volume II," by Louis H. Everts, 1879.
The Baptist Church Of Whately was organized May 5, 1789, and originally embraced the twenty-five members who withdrew from the Congregational Church the year before, and others, living in the western part of the town, as follows: Silas Smith, Benjamin Smith, John Graves, Elisha Smith, Benjamin Bacon, Jesse Warner, Caleb Ward, Russell Wells, Simeon Dean, Russell Ellis, Elijah Warner, Joel Wright, Benoni Graves, Thomas Dickinson, Thomas Wild, John Stark, Abraham Olds, George Rogers, John Williams, Ruphy Warner, Stephen Green, Elisha Baker, Asa Todd, Adna Smith, Ephraim Fisher, Jonathan Bagley, Sarah Warner, Abigail Brown, Lois Graves, Lydia Frary, Mary Smith, E. C. Brown, Louisa Smith, Mary Brown, Elizabeth Smith, Jerusha Wells, Anna Tator, Jerusha Brown, Lovina Smith, Abigail Manson, Lydia Allen, Abigail Todd, Phebe Dean, Hagar Robbins, Elizabeth Fuller, Ruth Baker, Jemima Clark, Triphenia Stark, Anna Rogers, Marah Baker, Nancy Fisher, Miriam Cassell, Marion Church, nary Williams, and Sarah Gunn.
The meetings were first held in the school-house, but about 1790 an old-fashioned meeting-house was erected on the Poplar Hill road. In 1817 the lower parts of the posts were cut off about four feet, and the house lowered and modernized. It was rededicated, October, 1817, by the Rev. David Pease. The house was demolished some years since.
July 6, 1789, Titus Doolittle, clerk of the Westfield Church, recommended Asa Todd, the first pastor, in the following letter: "Brother Asa Todd is in good and wholesome standing, and of good report of them that are without sin." He was ordained Sept. 9, 1789. The Rev. Stephen Barker was installed in 1807; Rev. John R. Goodnough, ordained Aug. 26, 1823; and Rev. Lorenzo Rice, Feb. 8, 1837. After this the Revs. James Parker and George Bills supplied the church, each two years; and after a few years of abating interest, the church was disbanded, Aug. 23, 1850.
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