West Exeter Baptist Church records (MS.2012.018)

Historical note

The West Exeter Baptist Church originated in 1858 as a branch of the West Greenwich Baptist Church and remained as such until 1878. Originally called the “Four Corners Meeting House,” it later was called the West Exeter Baptist Church. The meetinghouse was located at 2019 Ten Rod Road in Exeter, RI and was dedicated in 1860. The first settled clergyman was John Tillinghast (1870-1878). As a rural church, it always had a small membership, and by the 1930s and 1940s, it ceased to function and the meetinghouse went unused. When a lumber dealer sought to acquire the building for a store in the late 1950s, some local people got the Rhode Island State Convention to become involved in saving the meetinghouse. The church was declared “extinct” on August 2, 1957 by a decree of the Superior Court of Rhode Island, and its property was turned over to the Rhode Island State Convention. Services resumed in January 1958, but the congregation remained small. In the last decades the membership dwindled to about 20 people who were increasingly elderly. The congregation finally disbanded in December 2011.