Lower Northampton Baptist is another Virginia Eastern Shore church near Cape Charles. The church was organized in the late 18th century and built their first church building in 1785. This brick church above is now their fourth building and was completed in 1913. A history marker near the church has a little bit more related history:
Elijah Baker, Baptist preacher, began his ministry in Lunenburg County. As an itinerant in the 1770s, he helped found several churches in the counties along the James and York Rivers. He arrived in this area on Easter Sunday 1776 and traveled to nearby Magothy Bay Anglican Church. The minister was absent, and Baker, atop a horse block near the churchyard, preached the first Baptist sermon on the Eastern Shore. He is credited with helping to found 18 Baptist churches on the Delmarva Peninsula. Detained in Accomack County in 1778, he was the last Baptist jailed for preaching in Virginia. Baker was the pastor of nearby Lower Northampton Baptist Church when he died in 1798.
There’s also a small cemetery with over a hundred graves to the right of the building, the oldest from the end of the 19th century.
The Old Church Project 