Canton Baptist Church
Canton, Salem County
Smick Road
founded 1809, built 1840
The Ante-Paedobaptist Society of Lower Alloway Creek was organized by 1809, when it received a gift of two acres of land. Nine years later the congregation, consisting of members dismissed from Baptist churches in Salem and Cohansey, was formally organized. Jaquett speculates that their first church was erected about 1819. There was a schism within the congregation in 1837 (a not uncommon event among Baptists), and the pastor and much of the membership withdrew and organized a church in Canton. That eventually folded; by 1840 a decision was made to build a new church on the site of the original, and this 40' x 50' brick church was erected. Jaquett says the brick were made from clay a short distance from the building; that was fairly common, as transportation of heavy or bulky materials was quite expensive at that time. The entrance vestibule is new, of course. The building, in other respects, appears to be very similar to the Baptist church in Greenwich.