Worshiping together, too

The Shackfords and Olmsteads had more in common than their livelihoods on and around the sea.

The oldest church in Eastport, founded in either 1798 or 1802, was the Calvinist Baptists, as some in town knew them, or more accurately, Particular Baptists, largely in line with the majority of Baptists today. That group moved into its Washington Street house of worship in 1837. (Today, it’s the Eastport Arts Center.)

The second congregation in town was the Free Will Baptists, organized in 1816 and incorporating with the state in 1820. Darius and Ethel Olmstead along with John and William Shackford and their brothers-in-law John Hinkley and John C. Lincoln were named in the incorporation papers.

Among other things, Free Will Baptists avoided alcohol consumption and, in its Northern stream, opposed slavery. As a rite, it practiced foot-washing. The denomination stemmed from the Dutch Mennoninte-influenced General Baptists in England, unlike the Baptists just down the hill. I am curious to learn how much our Shackfords and Olmsteads hewed to the denomination’s values. The General Baptists, I should point out, were earlier a strong influence on the emerging Quaker movement in Britain. My Quaking Dover book details more.

The Free Will Baptists dedicated their first meetinghouse in town in 1819, a year before the other Baptists had theirs. They were later known as North Christian Church, with the building at Washington and High streets.

Next to organize in town were the Congregationalists, 1819, and Unitarians, 1821. Roman Catholics had a chapel in 1828, early for New England.

The 1820 Census for Eastport has the brothers Darius, Ethell, and Jesse Olmstead as heads of household.

Two years later, Mrs. Darius Olmstead (Elsie Haddon) and Mrs. Ethel Olmstead (Nancy Ann Haddon) were among the charter members of the Eastport Benevolent Female Society, as were Mrs. William Shackford, Mrs. Jacob Shackford, and Mrs. John Shackford.

The Olmsteads and Shackfords obviously shared in an emerging social structure, having arrived in the Passamaquoddy region at the same time.

All of it, of course, has relevance on the house we bought.