Mount Elvin Baptist Church sits quietly on a tiny knoll off Hindustan Street on the outskirts of New Grant in southern Trinidad. It is an unpretentious church and however it can be considered the epicenter of the Baptist faith in Trinidad and Tobago. This church was proven in 1816 and the importance of that day has to do with the settlement of the “Merikens” in Trinidad in that calendar year.

In 1816 demobilized Africans who experienced served in the British Army in the course of the War of 1812 between the British and the Individuals ended up settled in Trinidad in what arrived to be known as the Firm Villages. In accordance to A.B. Huggins in his book “the Saga of the Organizations” the term “Merikens” arose simply because these folks could not appropriately pronounce the letter A in American. John McNish Weiss in his paper “The Corps of Colonial Marines” says that these “Merikin” soldiers ended up slaves in the United states of america who have been promised their independence if they fought for the British. Recruited by the British first in Maryland and Virginia and later in Ga, they ended up a preventing device considerably praised for valor and self-control.

When the British Military firms remaining for house in England in April 1815, the 6 Black firms grew to become the 3rd Battalion Colonial Marines, garrisoned in Bermuda on Eire Island. They did garrison responsibility and labored as artisans and laborers in the building of the new Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda. When transfer to the West India Regiments was proposed the males rejected the notion. Their persistent intransigence finally led the British govt to provide to place them in Trinidad as independent farmers. On accepting the offer they left Bermuda on 15 July 1816.The initial team of 71 settled in Dunmore Hill and Mount Elvin even though the next group of 72 settled in Indian Stroll.

These were spiritual folks who adopted the Baptist religion practiced in the southern United States. Despite the fact that there were no clergymen amid them there ended up 5 gentlemen who ended up described as Anabaptist preachers who held Sunday ceremonies. A single of these males was known as Brother Will Hamilton. In 1808 the London Missionary Culture (Baptist) sent employees to Guyana and Tobago and in 1809 a single of them, Thomas Adam, relocated to Trinidad. He and afterwards Reverend George Cowen although working on the institution of St John’s Baptist Church in Port of Spain Trinidad also gave support to these African-American ex-slaves who ended up practicing a model of the Baptist religion. In time, the similarities of the faith led to the adoption of the missionaries’ edition of the Baptist faith that arrived to be called in Trinidad, London Baptist.

Above baptist church in Raleigh , according to Ashram Stapleton in his guide “The Start and Progress of the Baptist Church in Trinidad and Tobago”, there created a schism as some folks in the church needed particular African techniques integrated and the London Missionary Modern society frowned on individuals procedures. Eventually these persons still left the church and have been first referred to as the “Disobedient Baptists” and lastly the Spiritual or Shouter Baptist. Other variances inside of the London Baptists then led to additional variants of the Baptist religion with the growth of the Independent Baptists and the Basic Baptists.