1790s - Itinerant preachers plant Baptist churches throughout Nova Scotia and New Brunswick

During the 1790s, a group of dynamic young men who had been deeply influenced by Henry Alline one by one set out as itinerant preachers, traveling throughout the Maritime provinces. Edward Manning (1766-1851), sometimes called the “Father of the Baptists of Nova Scotia,” began preaching in 1789 and was eventually ordained in Cornwallis, NS, where he pastored for more than 50 years. Joseph Crandall (1761-1858), the first ordained Baptist minister in New Brunswick, traveled the province for decades from his home base in Salisbury, NB, planting dozens of Baptist churches.

Another key figure Joseph Dimock (768-1846), who set out in 1790 and was itinerant until he settled in Chester, NS; he would later become the first moderator of the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick Baptist Association. Though some of the churches planted were originally Congregationalist, by the early 1800s, most had adopted Baptist beliefs and the practice of believer’s baptism by immersion.