General Info

Third Baptist Church was founded in San Francisco in the milieu of the Gold Rush days and its attendant instability. In an attempt to impact the cultural and spiritual life in the growing city of San Francisco, in August 1852, The First Colored Baptist Church of San Francisco was established. The church was founded in the home of William and Eliza Davis, on Kearny Street. With the Davis's, there were seven other Black persons-and a band of devout Christian founders: Abraham Brown, Thomas Bundy, Thomas Davenport, Willie Denton, Harry Fields, George Lewis, and Fielding Spots. In 1854, the First Colored Baptist Church of San Francisco bought the old First Baptist Church and moved it to a location on Dupont Street between Greenwich and Filbert Streets. In 1866, a down payment of $4500 was made toward purchasing the old Howard Presbyterian Church property. Two years later, this property was exchanged for a lot on the corner of Bush and Powell Streets on which was erected a building, dedicated on March 14, 1869, at an appraised value of $40, 000. Thirty years later, in 1899, the final note was paid by the membership of 160. For seven years, the church, under the leadership of Rev. J. H. Kelly, enjoyed the rare experience of community pride and worship. In 1906, the church was destroyed by the fire caused by the earthquake. Within two years, the members had begun to purchase a new church on Hyde and Clay Streets. With a down payment of $25, 000 from the sale of the Bush and Powell Street property, they erected a new $49, 000 church edifice. Through this period of growth and development, Third Baptist became the sole medium of expression of leadership through which the Negro could receive appropriate affirmation and recognition. Although Third Baptist Church had been the functional name since 1855, the name was changed in 1908 to reflect its emergence as the third communion of Baptists founded in the city and its desire to be an inclusive church without racial designations. Also, the church was the first Black Baptist congregation established west of the Rocky Mountains.