First Baptist Church of Royal Oak / First Baptist Church of Royal Oak

Several members of this church were significant to its early development. In 1839 charter member Hamlet Harris, “a free colored person” according to the 1840 census, donated twenty-five dollars towards the construction of the first church. In 1876 Athalinda Phelps donated the land, and the Reverend Silas Finn provided his labor and half of the money required to build a second church. When membership was low at the turn of the century, Anna B. Quick held meetings to maintain the church charter. This marker was erected in 1989, the church’s 150th year. In January 1839 twenty people organized this congregation, ten of whom were baptized in the Red Run Creek. The Baptists built the first church in Royal Oak in August of that year near Main and Third Streets. All subsequent churches have stood on the present site on Main Street where the second church, known as the “Greek Cross Church,” was built in 1876. The Tabernacle followed in 1918, the first brick sanctuary in 1921, and the adjacent educational building in 1950. The present sanctuary was erected in 1965.