Providence, Rhode Island
As Bear and I took our stroll up and down Benefit Street a few weeks ago, we paused by Barker Playhouse to see a lone grave marker in the former churchyard.
Tillinghast emigrated from his home in Streat, Sussex, England to Providence in 1743 when he was 21 years old. According to Wikipedia,
He served as pastor of the First Baptist Church in Providence without remuneration from 1678 until his death in 1717... In 1700 at his own expense, Tillinghast built the first meeting-house of the First Baptist Church, the oldest Baptist congregation in America.
Tillinghast married twice, and his descendants include most Americans with the name Tillinghast, Samuel Ward - delegate to the Continental Congress, Julia Ward Howe, and Nicholas Brown, Jr. (one of the founders of Brown University).
He died in 1718 at 96, which is an impressive age in any era, but particularly in Colonial-era America.
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