Click on the following link to take you to one of Mic’s earlier classes.
The topic being discussed is WHY people left Europe to come to America. One of the big obvious reasons was the terrible unrest and constant wars occurring over several hundred years throughout Europe.
Discussed is the Civil War in England, plus the Wars in Germany and France
The chart below comes from a website discussing the various American Colonies and when they when ultimately outlawed state supported religion.
I have made notes discussing religion in those colonies. I have deleted the notes given by the Procon website due to the shear amount of data. It is possible you may be able to click on the links of the chart and revive the procon data.
Time Between Original Colonial Charter and End of State-Supported Religion
This information derives from Britannica Procon.org https://undergod.procon.org/religion-in-the-original-13-colonies/
Note by Procon:
By the year 1702 all 13 American colonies had some form of state-supported religion. This support varied from tax benefits to religious requirements for voting or serving in the legislature. Below are excerpts from colonial era founding documents citing these religious references.
Most instances of state-supported religion were removed before 1850, and the remaining requirements became null and void after the passing of the 14th Amendment on July 28, 1868. New Hampshire and North Carolina removed the nullified religious references from their state constitutions in 1875 and 1877 respectively.
II. Text from Historical Documents Showing State Support of Religion
1. Virginia
Official Religion: Anglican/Church of England
Original Charter Date: Apr. 10,1606
Full text: The
First Charter of Virginia
Ended Support: 1830
Notes From Mic:
See the following for a history of Religion in Virginina: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_early_Virginia
Founding of St Marys in Alexandria, VA https://web.archive.org/web/20171011183049/https://stmaryoldtown.org/founding-st-mary
Another good history of religion in Virginia at http://www.virginiaplaces.org/religion/
Quaker Meetings. Com https://www.quakermeetings.com/Plone/yearlymeetings
2. New York
Official Religion: Anglican/Church of England
Original Charter Date: June 7, 1614
Full text: Charter
of the Dutch West India Company
Ended Support: 1846
Notes from Mic:
“The Dutch Colony of the seventeenth century was officially intolerantly Protestant but was, as has been noted, in practice tolerant and fair to people of other faiths who dwelt within New Netherland.
Read about the Flushing Remonstrance 1657 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flushing_Remonstrance#:~:text=The%20Flushing%20Remonstrance%20was%20a,his%20ban%20on%20Quaker%20worship.
New Netherlands was a colony of the Netherlands from 1614 through 1664 when it was overtaken and defeated by the British
When the English took the province from the Dutch in 1664, they granted full religious toleration to the other forms of Protestantism, and preserved the property rights of the Dutch Reformed Church, while recognizing its discipline.
In 1697, although the Anglican Church was never formally established in the Province of New York, Trinity Church was founded in the City of New York by royal charter, and received many civil privileges and the munificent grants of land which are the source of its present great wealth.”
New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia
3. Massachusetts
Official Religion: Congregational Church
Original Charter Date: Mar. 4, 1629
Full text: The
Charter of Massachusetts Bay
Ended Support: 1833
Notes From Mic:
The Puritans were members of a religious reform movement known as Puritanism that arose within the Church of England in the late 16th century. They believed the Church of England was too similar to the Roman Catholic Church and should eliminate ceremonies and practices not rooted in the Bible.Oct 29, 2009
See the following website(history .com) for a deeper understanding of Puritanism https://www.history.com/topics/colonial-america/puritanism
“Like many who arrived on these shores in the 17th century, the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay came to America seeking religious freedom… The freedom they sought, however, was for themselves and not for others. The Puritans felt called by God to establish ‘new Israel,’ a holy commonwealth based on a covenant between God and themselves as the people of God. Though there were separate areas of authority for church and state in Puritan Massachusetts, all laws of the community were to be grounded in God’s law and all citizens were expected to uphold the divine covenant…
Very early in the Massachusetts experiment, dissenters arose to challenge the Puritan vision of a holy society. The first dissenter, Roger Williams (c.1603-1683), was himself a Puritan minister but with a very different vision of God’s plan for human society. Williams argued that God had not given divine sanction to the Puritan colony. In his view, the civil authorities of Massachusetts had no authority to involve themselves in matters of faith. The true church, according to Williams, was a voluntary association of God’s elect. Any state involvement in the worship or God, therefore, was contrary to the divine will and inevitably led to the defilement of the church…
Banished from Massachusetts in 1635, Roger Williams founded Rhode Island, the first colony with no established church and the first society in America to grant liberty of conscience to everyone.”
4. Maryland
Official Religion: Anglican/Church of England
Original Charter Date: June 20, 1632
Full text: The
Charter of Maryland
Ended Support: 1867
Notes from Mic:
Maryland was Chartered as a Catholic Colony under Lord Baltimore in 1632. On 25 March 1655, Battle of the Severn was fought in the Province of Maryland and was won by a Puritan force fighting under a Commonwealth flag who defeated a Royalist force fighting for Lord Baltimore. As a result of this defeat Catholics essentially were disbanded by the Puritan Government and had to practice their religion clandestinely
Read the following article about the protestant revolution in Maryland https://earlyamericanists.com/2015/01/07/marylands-protestant-revolution-and-the-problem-of-religious-freedom/
And https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/868/maryland-toleration-act-of-1649
5. Delaware
Official Religion: None
Original Charter Date: 1637
Chartered by: South Company of Sweden
Ended Support: 1792
Notes from Mic:
Delaware was founded as a Swedish Colony and practiced Lutheranism as in Sweden. They were defeated in the 1660’s at the same time as New Netherlands.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Sweden
To attend church, the Swedish settlers in Raccoon had to cross the river to Wilmington or Philadelphia. The difficulty of this crossing led to the decision to build a new church on the banks of Raccoon Creek. The site selected was near the new bridge for Kings Highway, which led from Burlington to Salem. In 1703, they purchased 100 acres (0.40 km2) along the Raccoon Creek and on part of it established their own church, the first Swedish language church in New Jersey.[4]
Trinity Church was originally a Swedish Lutheran Parish. From 1703 to 1786, it was served by clergy sent from Sweden. With the completion of a new church building in 1786, the Swedish Mission was drawing to a close. The Swedish language was almost extinct and the people no longer felt the same bond of sympathy with the land of their forebears. The congregations in New Jersey did not desire new pastors from Sweden and could not afford to offer them decent support. In October 1789 a semblance of affiliation by Trinity Church with the Episcopal Church in America began. The church is now known as Trinity Episcopal “Old Swedes” Church and is a member parish of the Episcopal Diocese of New Jersey.[5]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_Church_(Swedesboro,_New_Jersey)
6. Connecticut
Official Religion: Congregational Church
Original Charter Date: Jan. 14, 1639
Full text: The
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut
Ended Support: 1818
Notes from Mic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Colony
The Connecticut Colony or Colony of Connecticut, originally known as the Connecticut River Colony or simply the River Colony, was an English colony in New England which became the state of Connecticut. It was organized on March 3, 1636 as a settlement for a Puritan congregation, and the English permanently gained control of the region in 1637 after struggles with the Dutch. The colony was later the scene of a bloody war between the colonists and Pequot Indians known as the Pequot War. Connecticut Colony played a significant role in the establishment of self-government in the New World with its refusal to surrender local authority to the Dominion of New England, an event known as the Charter Oak incident which occurred at Jeremy Adams‘ inn and tavern.
Two other English settlements in the State of Connecticut were merged into the Colony of Connecticut: Saybrook Colony in 1644 and New Haven Colony in 1662.
The original colonies along the Connecticut River and in New Haven were established by separatist Puritans who were connected with the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies. They held Calvinist religious beliefs similar to the English Puritans, but they maintained that their congregations needed to be separated from the English state church. They had immigrated to New England during the Great Migration. In the middle of the 17th century, the government restricted voting rights with a property qualification and a church membership requirement.[1] Congregationalism was the established church in the colony by the time of the American Revolutionary War.[2]
7. New Hampshire
Official Religion: Congregational Church
Original Charter Date: Aug. 4, 1639
Full text: Agreement
of the Settlers at Exeter in New Hampshire
Ended Support: 1877
Notes from Mic:
Here is a short history of New Hampshire. New Hampshire, like her mother Colonly, Massachusetts, was a Puritan and Congregationalist society. https://www.usahistory.info/New-England/New-Hampshire.html
8. Rhode Island
Official Religion: None
Original Charter Date: Mar. 14, 1643
Full text: Patent
for Providence Plantations
Ended Support: 1842
Notes from Mic:
What was the religion in Rhode Island colony?
Puritans, Baptists and Quakers who had fled the persecutions of New England Puritans to settle in Rhode Island were joined in 1658 by a Jewish community at Newport, seeking religious freedom. In 1686 a community of Huguenots (French Protestants) was established in the colony.Feb 5, 2021
Roger Williams – Founder of Rhode Island & Salem Minister …
https://www.history.com › topics › reformation › roger-…
Oct 29, 2009 — Roger Williams and his followers settled on Narragansett Bay, where they purchased land from the Narragansett Indians and established a new colony governed by the principles of religious liberty and separation of church and state. Rhode Island became a haven for Baptists, Quakers, Jews and other religious minorities.
Rhode Island’s “lively experiment” in religious liberty became Williams’s most tangible legacy, with the colony becoming a haven for Baptists, Quakers, Jews and other religious minorities. Nearly a century after his death, Williams’ notion of “a separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world” inspired the founders of the United States, who incorporated the principle we know as separation of church and state into the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. https://www.gwirf.org/roger-williams-rhode-island-birthplace-of-religious-freedom/
9. Georgia
Official Religion: None
Original Charter Date: 1732
Full text: Charter
of Georgia
Ended Support: 1798
Notes from Mic:
10. North Carolina
Official Religion: Anglican/Church of England
Original Charter Date: Mar. 24, 1663
Full text: Charter
of Carolina
Ended Support: 1875
Notes from Mic:
11. South Carolina
Official Religion: Anglican/Church of England
Original Charter Date: Mar. 24, 1663
Full text: Charter
of Carolina
Ended Support: 1868
Notes from Mic:
12. Pennsylvania
Official Religion: None
Original Charter Date: Feb. 28, 1681
Full text: Charter
for the Province of Pennsylvania
Ended Support: 1790
Notes from Mic:
Ephrata Cloister https://ephratacloister.org/
Genealogy of Ephrata Cloister https://ephratacloister.org/genealogy/
13. New Jersey
Official Religion: None
Original Charter Date: Mar. 12, 1702
Full text: Surrender
from the Proprietors of East and West New Jersey, of Their Pretended Right of
Government to Her Majesty
Ended Support: 1844
Notes from Mic:
The following link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_religion_in_the_United_States
Where would one find records of churches and religion online?
Cyndislist.com at https://www.cyndislist.com/religion/
Has over 300 links to various websites about churches and reseaching the various religions:
Ancestry, My Heritage, Find My Past and Family Search have many church records and religious newspapers digitized on their sites. View their cataologues.
The Library of Congress also have a wonderful collection of religious newspapers at
This link is for a premium article at Family Tree Magazine https://www.familytreemagazine.com/records/church/church-records-genealogy-workbook/
Ancestor Hunt -From this site I found a reference to a Baptist Church Record in Tuskegee AL. The file was at Family Search. I was able to access it. https://theancestorhunt.com/blog/3155-free-online-church-record-collections-from-the-southern-states/#.YIiBA5BKi70
https://socialwelfare.library.vcu.edu/religious/religion-nineteenth-century-america/
https://www.pbs.org/godinamerica/timeline/
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/recu/hd_recu.htm
http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/fastfacts/fast_facts.html
https://www.cnn.com/2015/07/02/living/america-christian-nation/index.html
http://projects.leadr.msu.edu/youngamerica/exhibits/show/antislaveryreligion/antislaveryreligionusa
https://read.activelylearn.com/#teacher/reader/authoring/preview/977015/notes
https://www.plimoth.org/explore/17th-century-english-village/faith-pilgrims