Third Baptist Church

E-147

Alexandria, occupied by Union troops in 1861, attracted many African Americans escaping slavery. In Jan. 1864, a group of formerly enslaved people organized Third Freedmen's Baptist Church (later Third Baptist Church). The congregation moved to this site in 1865 and built its Romanesque Revival sanctuary in the 1890s. The church’s first minister was the Rev. George Washington Parker (ca. 1832-1873), who had been free before the Civil War. He worked with the Rev. Clement Robinson to start the First Select Colored School in 1862, was a local Republican Party leader during Reconstruction, and was the first African American member of the Alexandria Common Council.

Department of Historic Resources, 2018

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Alexandria Gazette, 8 Sept. 1864, 4 May 1865, 1 Oct. 1870, 9 June 1873, 13 July 1895, 24 June, 9 Aug., 7, 22 Sept. 1897. Minutes of the 157th Anniversary of the Philadelphia Baptist Association (1864, 1865). Proceedings of the Convention of the Colored People of VA., (1865). List of All School Buildings in 6th Ed. Sub. Dist. Of Virginia, 22 April 1869. T. Michael Miller, Alexandria (Virginia) City Officialdom, 1749-1992 (Bowie, MD: Heritage Books, 1992). Uptown/Parker-Gray Historic District NRHP nomination, 2010. Testimony in the Case of Chas. Whittlesey vs. Lewis McKenzine (41st Congress, 2d session, Misc. Doc. No. 46), 31 Jan. 1870. www.thirdbaptistalexva.org www.theotheralexandria.com