Penns Neck Baptist Church


Penns Neck Baptist Church is a historic church, opened in 1812, on US 1 at Washington Road in Penns Neck, West Windsor Township, Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. The church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989.

History

The church was built alongside the then new Trenton and New Brunswick Turnpike, now Route One. The turnpike, which had opened in 1807, was designed to help provide a proper road connection between Philadelphia and New York City. The parsonage pre-dated the church and had been a public house in which, it is thought, George Washington and William Penn had stayed. At the time the area was also called Williamsburg and the church was first referred to as Williamsborough Baptist. The Rev. Peter Wilson started in ministry in central Jersey preaching in private homes, starting at that of John Flock in Pennington in 1790, and also at John Campbell's house in Princeton. In 1791 John Hight and his wife of Penn's Neck were baptized and preaching continued in their home as well as others in Princeton. By the time the church was built, twenty-nine residents of the Penn's Neck area had been baptized including Richard Thomas, who would later serve as a delegate to the New Jersey Association, and New Jersey Baptist State Convention. Funds for the church building were raised from the congregation in Hightstown as well as residents of Princeton. At its dedication the church had thirty-seven members.