Parsonsfield Seminary
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Parsonsfield Seminary
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| Location | Parsonsfield, Maine |
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| Coordinates | 43°45′46″N 70°56′20″W / 43.76278°N 70.93889°WCoordinates: 43°45′46″N 70°56′20″W / 43.76278°N 70.93889°W |
| Built | 1857 |
| Architect | Unknown |
| Architectural style | Italianate |
| NRHP Reference # | 86001339 |
| Added to NRHP | June 20, 1986 |
Parsonsfield Seminary, which operated from 1832-1949, was a well-known Free Will Baptist school in North Parsonsfield, Maine, in the United States. Also known as the North Parsonsfield Seminary, its preserved campus of four buildings is located on State Route 160 near the New Hampshire border. The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Free Will Baptists developed as a movement in the late eighteenth century in New Hampshire. In 1832 Rev. John Buzzell and several other Free Baptists founded the school in Parsonsfield. The Seminary, at the level of a high school, was the first Free Will Baptist school in the United States and attracted 140 students, both boys and girls, in its first year. The seminary's first principal, Hosea Quimby, was active in many other Free Will Baptist organizations. The Seminary staff and students became deeply involved with the abolitionist movement and operated as a stop on the Underground Railroad in the 1840s, while Oren B. Cheney was principal. Students and supporters aided fugitive slaves from the South in reaching freedom in Canada. From 1840 to 1842, the Free Baptist Biblical School, the first Free Baptist graduate school for training ministers, was located at the seminary (it was later renamed Cobb Divinity School and became part of Bates College).
Parsonsfield Seminary burned mysteriously in 1853, at midnight. The overall account of the burning remains unclear with sources varying on the actual occurrences. When recounting its burning, Oren Burbank Cheney, stated, "the bell tower flickered in flames while the children ran from its pillar-brick walls.." The fire was believed to have killed three school children, and two fugitive slaves, leading to a brief and unsuccessful investigation. The reason as to why the Seminary burned down remains unclear, with opponents of abolitionism traditionally, but not definitively, held accountable. The seminary would later go on to incorporate into the Maine State Seminary, to which early benefactor Benjamin Bates, would oppose. He advised Cheney to sell the land in Parsonsfield, Maine and reconstruct it within the newly-developing Maine State Seminary. Afterward, Cheney moved the central campus to Lewiston in 1854 to replace it with a larger Free Baptist school more centrally located in Maine.
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