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James Ingram remembers when he began to interpret Gowan
Pamphlet in Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area 22 years ago.
“I was given about two paragraphs, and it was all we knew about
Gowan Pamphlet,” he told an audience that gathered in early
September for a prayer vigil held at the Nassau Street site just before the
archaeological excavation began. In the last sentence of the second
paragraph, he learned that Pamphlet had sought to have his church
accepted into the all-white Dover Baptist Association, which at the time
was one of the largest district associations of Baptists in the world.
Ingram was stunned. He had studied religion at two seminaries and
had never heard of Gowan Pamphlet. Now the man who portrays
Pamphlet dreams of finding the foundation of the structure where the
ordained Black minister preached.
“I think we have something to talk about here,” he said.

Brick foundation of the first church building and associated brick paving. An interior
brick foundation wall for the 1856 church can be seen above the smaller foundation.
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Shortly after Cliff Fleet became president and CEO of Colonial
Williamsburg, he invited Harshaw to breakfast. They talked about the
restoration and Colonial Williamsburg’s history with the First Baptist
Church. And they talked about the sign. Harshaw said Fleet’s reaction
was the same as hers.
What followed was a plan to try to find—and tell—that story.

Some of that story was preserved under the pavement, waiting to be
found. The effort to unearth clues began in September 2020 when the
pavement was removed and Colonial Williamsburg’s archaeology
team—in collaboration with the church—began the excavation to find
the evidence of one of the oldest Black churches in America.
“There is a story there,” Harshaw said as the excavation project
began. “The fact that they’re looking, that they’re trying to uncover
that story – that is major for us.”
“We’ve got to acknowledge the painful past, but it fortifies us,” she
said. “And we’ve got to look to the future. This is the first step – the
project on Nassau Street.” Colonial Williamsburg Archaeological Field Technician Kyle Brubaker at the
excavation site of First Baptist Church’s original permanent location on South
Nassau Street, Sept. 23, 2020. A partnership led by First Baptist Church and
Colonial Williamsburg has resumed
archaeological investigation of the
site, which last took place in 1957.
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

Excavation Begins
This is not the first archae-
ological project at the Nassau
Street site. A dig in 1957 also
searched for—and found—the
existence of earlier structures,
but no connection was made A fragment of a glass ink bottle, likely dating
at the time between those to the 19th century, unearthed at the historic
structures and the Church. site of First Baptist Church’s first permanent
Colonial Williamsburg location in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Director of Archaeology Jack The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
Map of the First Baptist Church site showing the footprints of the first meeting house, Gary and his team studied
the 1856 church, and the graves in the cemetery. Also shown is the fence line that notes and maps from that early excavation to determine the first steps
defined the property boundary in the early 19th century and enclosed the majority
in the project. Before ground was broken, ground-penetrating radar
of the burials within the cemetery. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
showed evidence of a structure, which gave the team a starting point.
Church Leaders Lost, then Found
The First Baptist Church story begins in 1776, when the church was
organized. It was originally led by an African American named Moses
and then by Gowan Pamphlet, an enslaved Black tavern worker who by
1793 saw his congregation accepted into the Dover Baptist Association
of Virginia. The congregation moved from the arbor to Cole’s property,
where they built their first permanent building referred to as the Baptist
Meeting House in an 1818 tax document. A tornado destroyed that
structure in 1834.
Then came the brick church dedicated in 1856, which was known
before the Civil War as the African Baptist Church. It was renamed the
First Baptist Church in 1863. An 1817 one cent coin found below the brick paving adjacent to the
foundation of the first church building. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation
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