FOSTORIA | First Baptist: The Little Frame Church and Fostoria’s Baptists Since the Days of Risdon

Author: FFP Ai Bot

“First Baptist,” from an early printed halftone

FOSTORIA — It is a plain little building: a gabled frame church with tall, narrow windows and a square tower over the front door, topped by a short pyramid roof. A board along the foundation reads “FIRST BAPTIST.” The picture survives as a halftone, the dot-screen printing used in newspapers, booklets and church directories from the 1890s on.

This installment of our local history series looks at what the record says about Fostoria’s Baptists, from a small society in the village of Risdon to the First Baptist Church on Lynn Street today. The record is thinner than for some of the city’s older congregations, and where we could not confirm a detail, we have left it out or say so.

Quick timeline

A society in Risdon

Fostoria was born from two villages, Rome and Risdon, which merged in 1854 after Charles W. Foster donated land for a Methodist church that both could share. Churches were at the heart of that story from the start.

A. J. Baughman’s 1911 History of Seneca County records that “a close communion Baptist society was established at Risdon about 1852,” and that its services were held in the Methodist Episcopal church building. Close communion meant the Lord’s Supper was shared only with baptized members of the same faith, a common Baptist practice of the time. Like the young Presbyterians, who also borrowed the Methodist building in their first years, the Baptists had a congregation before they had a church of their own.

A building of their own

One clue comes from a neighboring congregation. According to the history published by First Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterians built a brick church at 340 W. Fremont St. in 1859. When they outgrew it, they began a new building at Perry and West Fremont in 1889 and dedicated it in 1891. “The old church was sold to a Baptist congregation,” that history says. It does not name the congregation.

State records add another date. According to the Ohio Secretary of State, The Fostoria Baptist Church was incorporated on Dec. 2, 1893. It is not clear from the filing alone which of today’s Baptist congregations, if any, traces its roots to that corporation.

The little frame church

The full print of the First Baptist frame church

The church in our picture is clearly not the brick Presbyterian building. It is a modest wooden church of a kind that many small congregations built in the late 1800s, with clapboard siding, a stovepipe chimney at the rear and a single entrance through the tower. We have not been able to find where it stood, when it was built or when the picture was made. Based on the printing method and the building’s style, our best estimate is the 1890s to the 1920s.

The name on the sign, First Baptist, is the name the Lynn Street congregation uses today. The Advertiser-Tribune has reported on First Baptist Church celebrating 135 years, which would put its founding around 1889, if that count is measured to 2024. We were not able to read that report in full, so we treat the date as approximate.

Still on the map

By 1964, a Bowling Green State University study counted 27 churches serving Fostoria, a city of about 16,000 at the time. First Baptist Church remains one of them, at 534 Lynn St., listed by Destination Seneca County among the area’s places of worship.

Researchers who want to dig deeper can start with the local history collection and newspaper microfilm at Kaubisch Public Library, which holds Fostoria papers going back to the 1800s. Old church anniversary booklets and obituaries are often the best place to find when a building went up and where it stood.

Do you know where this little church stood, or do you have a church anniversary booklet with its history? We would like to hear from you.

More from FFP: Looking Back at the Memories of Fostoria’s Field School and The “Hidden Tunnels” Beneath Fostoria.

Photo note: Photographs and images published before 1931 are in the public domain in the United States. Historical images in this article are shared for educational and historical purposes.

Sources

• A. J. Baughman, History of Seneca County, Ohio, Vol. I (Lewis Publishing Co., 1911), Fostoria churches (transcription): https://ldsgenealogy.com/OH/books/History-of-Seneca-County-Ohio-a-narrative-account-of-its-historical-progress-its-people-and-its-principal-interests-Vo-I-part-45.htm
• First Presbyterian Church, Fostoria, History of the Church: https://www.fostoriapresbyterian.org/history
• Ohio Secretary of State business search, The Fostoria Baptist Church, entity 9415 (incorporated Dec. 2, 1893): https://businesssearch.ohiosos.gov/
• The Advertiser-Tribune, First Baptist Church to celebrate 135 years: https://advertiser-tribune.com/news/536230/first-baptist-church-to-celebrate-135-years/
• Destination Seneca County, First Baptist Church Fostoria: https://www.destinationsenecacounty.org/place/first-baptist-church-fostoria/
• Jan W. Kolehmainen, A Comparative Survey of Certain Specific Roles of Radio Station WFOB and the Newspaper, the Review-Times, in Fostoria, Ohio (M.A. thesis, Bowling Green State University, 1965): https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=bgsu1670603448494617&disposition=inline
• Kaubisch Public Library, Local History: https://www.fostoria.lib.oh.us/findinfo/localhistory
• Wikipedia, Fostoria, Ohio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fostoria,_Ohio