Rev. Obadiah Holmes

• General Notes
  • Rhode Island's famous Baptist clergyman.
    
    In 1651, John Clarke, John Crandall and Obadiah Holmes were arrested and imprisoned in Lynn, Massachusetts for conducting an illegal worship service. This event (and others like it) served as the basis for Clarke's Ill Newes from New England, or a Narrative of New England's Persecutions (1652).
    
    He was a Baptist. The Puritans were irritated by the Baptists who refused to baptize babies and added further irritation by insisting on baptism by immersion only. The Baptists were multiplying rapidly and the Massachusetts authorities were alarmed to the point of considering armed suppression of the Baptists in Rhode Island. Obadiah, John Clarke, and John Crandall were arrested by Massachusetts authorities as they visited a sick friend in Lynn. Clarke protested their heavy fines and Governor Endecott replied that Clarke "deserved death" and "was worthy to be hanged." Why? Because they were Baptists - believing in religious freedom, local church authority, and baptism by immersion only. Holmes refused to pay his fine since he was not guilty of any crime whereupon the Rev. John Wilson, pastor of the Boston Church, hit him and asked God to curse him. Holmes was severly whipped (thirty lashes) and carried his scars for life. Holmes said later about the whipping: "...having joyfulness in my heart, and cheerfulness in my countenance...I told the magistrates, 'you have struck me as with roses.' " He was a glassmaker and weaver.

Click here for details of Obadiah's family with Katherine Hyde

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