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Photograph Postcard "Second Baptist Church"

(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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The formation of the Second Baptist Church occurred in 1898, when a portion of the congregation of the First Baptist Church of Greenfield, Massachusetts, separated from the parent body. They purchased the former German Methodist Church on Hope Street in Greenfield and dedicated it under the name St. Stephen's African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. Financial problems in the 1930s forced the members to sell the building, at which time they withdrew from the AME Conference. By 1937, Baptists dominated the membership and the next year the group was chartered by the Massachusetts Baptist Convention. They then re-purchased their former church building. They continued to function until the late 1980s, but then disbanded. There is no African-American church in Greenfield now (2004). The building is presently used as a dance studio and the bell from the tower now hangs from the top of the E.A. Hall Building (Greenfield's first Court House) on Bank Row.

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