Starting in the 1850s southern blacks began moving to Worcester and settled at North Ashland Street, off Highland Street, then an edge of the city’s residential development. Here formed a “clustered” community of African Americans on Worcester’s West Side. Several residents owned their homes and operated successful businesses. By the late 1880s the city’s fourth black congregation, Mt. Olivet, later John Street Baptist Church organized in this area.
North Ashland Street Residents: #9 Frederick L. Clough, porter, Lucretia D. Moore, laundress, Henry Gibson, waiter, Timothy Gunn, shoemaker; #9r Mrs. Lizzie Mason, cleaner; #11, Eliza Dyer, widow, James L. Dyer, waiter, Mary N. Robin
s, laundress, John Anderson, coachman, Thaddeus J. Hamilton, waiter; #33 Alfred Shepard, driver; #35 Thomas C. Smart, carpet cleaner; #37, George J. Lindsey, cartman; #39, Harriet Moore, widow, Matilda Wiggins, laundress, Elizabeth Braddock, laundress, Emeline Fleet, laundress, Rachel Ward, laundress
John Street Residents: #56 Joseph McBride, driver; #56 Emery G. Phelps, driver; #62, Thomas Waples, carpenter; #64, Henry Johnson, carpet cleaner; #66 Hannah Gillum, laundress, David Martin, hairdresser; #68, Fannie Gates, laundress; #70, Mrs. Jennie Wilson, laundress, #72, Joseph Anderson, bootmaker
Bowdoin Street Residents: #28, Clarinda Kennard, hairwork, Rachel A. Kennard, widow, William A. Barker, machinist; #40 Charles W. Scott, janitor; #42, Francis W. Cummings, janitor; #56, Henry Walker, hairdresser
Bowdoin Street Court Residents: #2 Mrs. Hepsibeth Costello, Alexander F. Hemenway, hairdresser, William A. Hemenway, coachman, George W. Peck, coachman; #3 John Moore, hairdresser, Simon Grant, carpenter; #4 James H. Clark, engineer; #5 Charles Harris, coachman, Alfred Edwards, porter
Lilly Street Residents: #7 Mrs. Sybil A. Dyer, laundress, Susan Wamsley, laundress; #9 Elizabeth Reed, laundress, Eugene M. Hennessey, farmer; #11 Gloster D. Wanso, teamster; #13 Henry Mercer, basketmaker, William Woods, whitewasher; #13 Charles Dyer, teamster, Maria Stanley, laundress; #17 Venus Simmons, laundress; Samuel S. Latham, laborer, Horatio Lovett, laborer.
John Street Baptist or Mt. Olivet was a mission outreach activity to African Americans, primarily families who had come north from the Carolinas in the 1880 s, undertaken by the Pleasant Street Baptist Church. Rev. Henry F. Lane of the Pleasant Street congregation was originally in charge of the meeting of African American Baptists, many who lived on the West Side near the current location of John Street Baptist Church. In 1885, the group organized as Mount Olivet Baptist Church, meeting in a rented hall at 32 Front Street with Rev. Charles Simmonds as their first pastor. Rev. Hiram Conway, a native of Northumberland, Virginia, came North after graduating from the Richmond Institute and began preaching at Mt. Olivet in September 1886. Through his energies and the work of the founding families in March 1887 Reverend Conway was ordained by a council of Worcester County Baptist churches at the Pleasant Street Baptist Church. Three months later Mt. Olivet bought a lot on John Street and remodeled a tenement for their place of worship, becoming John Street Baptist Church. In 1891, the tenement was replaced with the congregation’ s present building.
Sources: WORCESTER HOUSE DIRECTORY OF 1888; Worcester Atlas of 1896