The authoritative source on
  early churches of New Jersey

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We've created a database and photographic inventory on more than half the 18th & 19th century churches in the state and add to it each month. We welcome and solicit all contributions and suggestions from our visitors.

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   Photographic Inventory

First Baptist Church of marlboro
Marlboro, Monmouth County

Five hundred dollars was willed in 1861 to purchase a lot on which to build a Baptist church, but as there were few Baptists in the vicinity, nothing was done until 1865, when a small chapel was fitted up. A Sunday School was organized and soon enough Baptists could be gathered to hold monthly meetings. A building committee was instructed in 1865 to erect a house of worship at a cost not to exceed $2,000 and by the summer of 1866 the cornerstone was laid for this building in the heart of town. Revival meetings were held over a period of four months and by the end of 1867 there
were enough members to organize formally.
     The church is a large Greek Revival building, with an emphasized
pediment, pilasters at the corners, and tall rectangular windows. The dentils of the cornice are oversized, which is a nice feature. By 1850 the Greek Revival style was out of fashion; it had given way to Gothic and Romanesque for churches, but persisted here and there in rural areas. Reformed and Baptist congregations were notably partial to it. The Baptist church in New Monmouth (built in 1855) looks very similar to an old photograph of this
building. The building later served as the Grange, and sometime in the
recent past it was sold for commercial use and extensively remodeled.
It is a very nice job of adaptive reuse.

 

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