paragraph_text: He was promoted to deputy postmaster-general for the British colonies in 1753, having been Philadelphia postmaster for many years, and this enabled him to set up the first national communications network. During the revolution, he became the first United States Postmaster General. He was active in community affairs and colonial and state politics, as well as national and international affairs. From 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. He initially owned and dealt in slaves but, by the 1750s, he argued against slavery from an economic perspective and became one of the most prominent abolitionists.

paragraph_text: The U.S. state with the longest name is Rhode Island, which officially is named '' the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

paragraph_text: The First Baptist Church in America is the First Baptist Church of Providence, Rhode Island, also known as the First Baptist Meetinghouse. It is the oldest Baptist church congregation in the United States, founded by Roger Williams in Providence, Rhode Island in 1638. The present church building was erected in 1774 -- 75 and held its first meetings in May 1775. It is located at 75 North Main Street in Providence's College Hill neighborhood and is a National Historic Landmark.

paragraph_text: Orient Baptist Church, also known as First Baptist Church of Laurelton, is a historic Baptist church on New Jersey Route 88 in the Laurelton section of Brick Township in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States.

paragraph_text: Both Roger Williams and John Clarke, his compatriot and coworker for religious freedom, are variously credited as founding the earliest Baptist church in North America. In 1639, Williams established a Baptist church in Providence, Rhode Island, and Clarke began a Baptist church in Newport, Rhode Island. According to a Baptist historian who has researched the matter extensively, ``There is much debate over the centuries as to whether the Providence or Newport church deserved the place of 'first' Baptist congregation in America. Exact records for both congregations are lacking. ''

paragraph_text: Historians trace the earliest church labeled ``Baptist ''back to 1609 in Amsterdam, Dutch Republic with English Separatist John Smyth as its pastor. In accordance with his reading of the New Testament, he rejected baptism of infants and instituted baptism only of believing adults. Baptist practice spread to England, where the General Baptists considered Christ's atonement to extend to all people, while the Particular Baptists believed that it extended only to the elect. Thomas Helwys formulated a distinctively Baptist request that the church and the state be kept separate in matters of law, so that individuals might have freedom of religion. Helwys died in prison as a consequence of the religious persecution of English dissenters under King James I. In 1638, Roger Williams established the first Baptist congregation in the North American colonies. In the mid-18th century, the First Great Awakening contributed to Baptist growth in both New England and the South. The Second Great Awakening in the South in the early 19th century greatly increased church membership. Baptist missionaries have spread their faith to every continent.

paragraph_text: Historians trace the earliest church labeled Baptist back to 1609 in Amsterdam, with English Separatist John Smyth as its pastor. In accordance with his reading of the New Testament, he rejected baptism of infants and instituted baptism only of believing adults. Baptist practice spread to England, where the General Baptists considered Christ's atonement to extend to all people, while the Particular Baptists believed that it extended only to the elect. In 1638, Roger Williams established the first Baptist congregation in the North American colonies. In the mid-18th century, the First Great Awakening increased Baptist growth in both New England and the South. The Second Great Awakening in the South in the early 19th century increased church membership, as did the preachers' lessening of support for abolition and manumission of slavery, which had been part of the 18th-century teachings. Baptist missionaries have spread their church to every continent.

paragraph_text: Dr Harold B. Sightler was founder of Tabernacle Baptist Church, Christian School, College, Children's Home, Tabernacle Baptist Missions International, WTBI, and Widows Homes in Greenville, SC, United States.

paragraph_text: Seth Magaziner (born July 22, 1983) is an American investment professional and the current General Treasurer of the State of Rhode Island.

paragraph_text: Both Roger Williams and John Clarke, his compatriot and coworker for religious freedom, are variously credited as founding the earliest Baptist church in North America. In 1639, Williams established a Baptist church in Providence, Rhode Island, and Clarke began a Baptist church in Newport, Rhode Island. According to a Baptist historian who has researched the matter extensively, "There is much debate over the centuries as to whether the Providence or Newport church deserved the place of 'first' Baptist congregation in America. Exact records for both congregations are lacking."

paragraph_text: The Thirteen Colonies were a group of British colonies on the east coast of North America founded in the 17th and 18th centuries that declared independence in 1776 and formed the United States of America. The Thirteen Colonies had very similar political, constitutional, and legal systems and were dominated by Protestant English - speakers. They were part of Britain's possessions in the New World, which also included colonies in Canada and the Caribbean, as well as East and West Florida.

paragraph_text: For the next ten years, there was a steady exodus of Puritans from England, with about 20,000 people emigrating to Massachusetts and the neighboring colonies during the Great Migration. Many ministers reacted to the repressive religious policies of England, making the trip with their congregations, among whom were John Cotton, Roger Williams, Thomas Hooker, and others. Religious divisions and the need for additional land prompted a number of new settlements that resulted in Connecticut Colony (by Hooker) and the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (by Williams and others). Minister John Wheelwright was banished in the wake of the Antinomian Controversy (like Anne Hutchinson), and he moved north to found Exeter, New Hampshire.

paragraph_text: Daniel Hale Williams (January 18, 1856 -- August 4, 1931) was an African - American general surgeon, who in 1893 performed the second documented, successful pericardium surgery in the United States to repair a wound. He founded Chicago's Provident Hospital, the first non-segregated hospital in the United States, and also founded an associated nursing school for African Americans.

paragraph_text: Martín de Argüelles, Jr., born in the Spanish colony of St. Augustine, Florida, was the first white child known to be born in what is now the continental United States. Born in 1566, his father was a hidalgo and one of the expeditioners who went to New Spain with Captain General Pedro Menéndez de Avilés in 1565. St. Augustine, Florida, is also the oldest continuously occupied European - founded city anywhere in the United States excluding Puerto Rico.

paragraph_text: The Thirteen Colonies were a group of British colonies on the east coast of North America founded in the 17th and 18th centuries that declared independence in 1776 and formed the United States of America. The Thirteen Colonies had very similar political, constitutional, and legal systems, and were dominated by Protestant English - speakers. They were part of Britain's possessions in the New World, which also included colonies in Canada and the Caribbean, as well as East and West Florida.

paragraph_text: Waverly Plantation was a large cotton plantation of unknown size, located in southern Leon County, Florida, United States, owned by George Taliaferro Ward.

paragraph_text: Baptist missionary work in Canada began in the British colony of Nova Scotia (present day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) in the 1760s. The first official record of a Baptist church in Canada was that of the Horton Baptist Church (now Wolfville) in Wolfville, Nova Scotia on 29 October 1778. The church was established with the assistance of the New Light evangelist Henry Alline. Many of Alline's followers, after his death, would convert and strengthen the Baptist presence in the Atlantic region.[page needed] Two major groups of Baptists formed the basis of the churches in the Maritimes. These were referred to as Regular Baptist (Calvinistic in their doctrine) and Free Will Baptists.

paragraph_text: Daniel Hale Williams (January 18, 1856 -- August 4, 1931) was an African - American general surgeon, who in 1893 performed the first documented, successful pericardium surgery in the United States to repair a wound. He founded Chicago's Provident Hospital, the first non-segregated hospital in the United States, and also founded an associated nursing school for African Americans.

paragraph_text: Williamsburg was founded in 1632 as Middle Plantation, a fortified settlement on high ground between the James and York rivers. The city served as the capital of the Colony and Commonwealth of Virginia from 1699 to 1780 and was the center of political events in Virginia leading to the American Revolution. The College of William & Mary, established in 1693, is the second - oldest institution of higher education in the United States and the only one of the nine colonial colleges located in the South; its alumni include three U.S. presidents as well as many other important figures in the nation's early history.

paragraph_text: The phrase "[A] hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world" was first used by Baptist theologian Roger Williams, the founder of the colony of Rhode Island, in his 1644 book The Bloody Tenent of Persecution. The phrase was later used by Thomas Jefferson as a description of the First Amendment and its restriction on the legislative branch of the federal government, in an 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists (a religious minority concerned about the dominant position of the Congregationalist church in Connecticut):

Question: Who is the General Treasurer of Providence Plantations, and the state that was founded by the individual, who started the first Baptist group in what is now the United States?
Answer: Seth Magaziner