Manahawkin Baptist Church

Manahawkin Baptist Church, also known as Free Church of Manahawkin, is a historic church in Manahawkin section of Stafford Township in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States.The deed for the first church was dated August 24, 1758, but according to the early settlers of the region, there was a house of worship being used as early as 1745. A building was erected at this time and a tract of land given as a gift of the John Haywood family who had settled in the area in 1743, after leaving their ancestral home in Coventry England. At that time, it was the only church building in the area that is now known as Ocean County. The first missionary, Reverend Thomas Thompson served the area from 1745 - 1751. He was assigned to Stafford Township by the "English Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts". A spirit of tolerance was evident in the early church, as it ministered to people of several different Protestant faiths.In 1770, Captain Thomas Webb is reported to have visited the village, preached at the church, and formed a Baptist Society with nine members. In 1774, when the church called its first pastor, the Reverend H. Crossley, the congregation numbered 19.During the Revolutionary War, in the "Skirmish at Manahawken", between Captain Rueben Randolphs's Manahawkin Militia and John Beacon's "Band of Pine Pirates" or "Refugees", wounded members of the Manahawkin Militia were treated and cared for in the church. Several veterans of the Revolution are buried in the cemetery surrounding the church along with local citizens at the time and several shipwreck victims. As services had been discontinued during the War, the Baptist Society was not reorganized until 1801.