“The First Baptist Church of Owego was the second Church organized in this village. It was organized September 20, 1831, by thirteen men and seventeen women who made up The Baptist Society…Rev. William King , the Pastor of the Church, preached the dedication sermon in the forenoon of January 14, 1858 on the rise and progress of the church since its organization…This was the first anti-slavery Church in the country, and the people were twice mobbed for allowing a Quaker to preach on the subject of “Human Rights”. Washington Gladden and Frederick Douglass spoke here during the days of Abolition…It is also noteworthy that, in the early 1850’s, First Baptist was the Church home of J.D. Rockefeller. Further, subsequent to the Civil War, General Henry Martin Robert, a Military Hero and the author of “Robert’s rules of Order”, was a member of this church. The Truman Family of Owego also claimed First Baptist as their Church Home in the early 1900’s.”