Whats the history of the Presbytery of Southern New England?
Presbyterians have been arriving in New England since before 1640. Among the earliest Presbyterians to arrive in this region were: some of the Puritans; slaves transported and sold in America by Cromwell’s government for fidelity to their oaths of allegiance to Charles II; French Huguenots who settled in Rhode Island and Massachusetts; and Scots and Scotch-Irish who settled in Worcester, Massachusetts. Early New England presbyteries included the Presbytery of Londonderry, the Presbytery of Boston, the Presbytery of Salem, the Presbytery of Grafton, and the Presbytery of the Eastward. In 1801 the General Assembly decided that there should be no Presbyterian Churches in our region, conceding Southern New England to the Congregationalist churches. In 1839 Presbyterians in Thompsonville, Connecticut approached a presbytery in New York to be organized as a Presbyterian church under its jurisdiction. In 1846 Presbyterians in Fall River, Massachusetts were organized as a Presbyterian church.
