An American Family History

Extracts from New Jersey Archives Relating to the Dunham Family. Vol. I., page 134.

About 1700 or 1701 a number of the members of the Piscataqua [Piscataway] Baptist Church in Piscataqua township, Middlesex County, withdrew from that church and formed a separate congregation, observing the seventh day as the Sabbath. They chose a minister and deacon October 11th, 1705, and in the fourth month, 1707, organized a Seventh Day Baptist Church with eighteen members.

Edmund Dunham, one of the originators of the church, having been ordained at Westerly, R. I., in 1705, was the first pastor; he had been a lay preacher in the Piscataqua [Piscataway] Church since 1689. He continued pastor of the new church until his death, March 7, 1734, in his 72nd year. He was succeeded in 1745 by his son, the Rev. Jonathan Dunham, who had preached to the congregation as a licentiate for many years." The record of the ordination of Edmund Dunham. "The Church of God keeping 'the Commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ, living in Piscataway and Hopewell in the Province of New Jersey, being assembled with one accord at the house of Benjamin Martin [father-in-law of Zedekiah Bonham Nehemiah Bonham] Piscataway, the 19th day of August, 1705, we did then and there and with one mind choose our dearly beloved Edmund Dunham, who is faithful in the Lord, to be our elder and assistant according to the will of God, whom we did send to New England to be ordained, who was ordained at the church-meeting in Westerly, R. I., by prayer and laying of hands by their elder, William Gibson, the 8th day of September, 1705.