The First Baptist Church of St. Paul is an historic church building in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. The congregation started as a Sunday school run by Harriet Bishop in 1847. She came from Vermont to the St. Paul area, still a part of Wisconsin Territory before Minnesota Territory was organized, after hearing that there were about thirty children who had no school or teacher. The school was originally located in an old blacksmith shop, which she described as "a mud-walled log hovel covered with bark and chinked with mud." A new schoolhouse was built on Jackson Street. On February 8, 1849, the Reverend John Parsons was appointed as a missionary to St. Paul. He preached in the schoolhouse at the start. On December 29, 1849, the church formally organized itself. They made immediate p