History of Barrington’s Free Baptists highlighted in new book

“This is something I’ve always wanted to do,” said McCormick, who has been researching information for The Early Years of Barrington’s Free Baptists for close to 50 years.

In 1961, McCormick began pastoring at the Temple Free Baptist Church, which is featured on the cover of the book. After seven years he resigned from the church and went into teaching.

He explains the differences between the Calvinist Baptists and Free Baptists, which joined in 1906.

“Free Baptists took in anybody that wanted to join whether they were baptized or not. They had open communion, anybody who considered them selves Christian were invited to partake in communion service,” he said.

“The regular Baptist had a closed church, you couldn’t join unless you’d been immersed. They also had closed communion. If you had not been baptized and were not a Church member, you were asked to leave.”

The book takes the reader up to 1866 and starts with the founding of the first church in 1782, which was called a gospel church. It became a Baptist church in 1800.

McCormick refers to the Barrington Township as the central hub from which the Free Baptist denomination spread to other areas of the province.

“There are 12 of our churches in Barrington now and out of those 12, 11 were originally Free Baptist churches. Yarmouth was another hot bed of them. I counted 32 Baptist churches and 16 of them were Free Baptist,” he said.

The book, which retails for $24, is available at Wilson’s Home Hardware, CSJ bookstore or from the authors