History of Somerset SDA Church – December 12, 1970

When the first Christian church was formed in the days that followed Pentecost, the brethren witnessed a mighty rushing wind that filled the house wherein they were assembled. And they, according to Paul were filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the spirit moved them.

People were overwhelmed and. transformed by the message the apostles proclaimed. They witnessed the actualizing of the commission given to the disciples by the MASTER prior to His ascension. That commission, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.”

Later the first Christian church was formed. It expanded and flourished, despite Satan’s sordid attempts to snuff it out, through the persecution of the Christian church.

Even now almost two thousand years later the promise of a soon coming Lord is still being proclaimed and many still heed the call and look for that blessed hope.

The growth and development of the Somerset S.D.A. Church therefore is not a unique experience in the Christian witness. It is only another step in fulfilling that gospel commission.

The first official meeting of the Somerset Company, later to become the Somerset Church, was held on December 12, 1970, at the Sandy’s Secondary School Assembly area. After two sessions there, the meeting place was moved to a more permanent base at the Masonic Lodge in Mangrove Bay.

The moving notice in the Bulletin of December 19, 1970, stated “This will be our regular meeting place henceforth.” It shouldn’t be thought for one moment that whoever saw fit to print this statement was limiting or underestimating the growth and expansion or even the conceivable idea of a church home, after all, the Masonic Lodge was a positive forward step.

The challenge given to the company of believers who committed themselves to esablishing, with the help of God, a church in Somerset, came in a seed thought taken from Selected Messages Vol. II p. 381, 382 and presented by Elder Carl Currie, the then president of the Bermuda Mission.

Every soul united to Christ will be a living missionary to all around him. He will labour for those near and those afar off. .. All will work with interest to make every branch strong. There will be no self love, no selfish interest.

That seed of thought was sown deeply in the hearts and minds of the company and through their conscious and persistent effort was later to bring forth fruit.

As told by Sis. Margaret Marshall, now deceased.

The first positive seed of Adventism was sown in Bermuda just before the turn of the century by a reknown business man and former Adventist pastor Elder Marshall Enoch.

Marshall Enoch owned and operated a variety store on Reid Street in Hamilton were the Music Box is presently located. His speciality was the manufacturing of peanut butter. Enoch used his store as a means of contact with the people in the community and neglected no opportunity to invite them to worship with him from time to time in his home. He soon generated such an interest that he was forced to branch out from his home to the upper level of the old police station on Parliament Street in Hamilton.

At that time there were approximately six families meeting at that location. The Pires, the Leets, the Does, the Simons, the Hills and the Munroes.

Pastor 1.W. Bartlett came in 1901 to organise these families into an official company of believers. Later in 1903 this small company witnessed the arrival of the first licensed credentialed pastor sent by the Atlantic Union to lead the constituents in Bermuda.

The meeting place was relocated at Middle Town in Pembroke, after building the first permanent structure to Adventism there.

Mrs. Murrow was the niece of Elder Marshall Enoch and it was throught that it was probably through this connection that the Murrows were sent by Atlantic Union to Bermuda.

While Elder Murrow lead out in Pastoral administration, Mrs. Murrow started and operated the first Adventist Church school here. The late Mrs. Margaret Marshall along with her sister Mrs. De Costa, the late Helen Gomez Kelly, Mr. Byron Hill and several others made up the first group of students of the original church school. This was yet another passage of evangelism.

The members used every avenue and every opportunity to evanglise and witness in the Bermuda community. Contacts were made through Harvest Ingathering, through the Colporteur ministry and seeds were planted, some to remain dorment until the time was right for a harvest, germinated and sprang forth. In 1926 the second church home began at Jews

Bay in Southampton after a chapel and the property were donated to the church by one of the original members, Profirio Gomez.

Virgin soil was tested in the Somerset area but there were no encouraging returns. To establish an adventist company in this area was premature.

Meanwhile, the membership in Hamilton quickly expanded and the congregation realized that a new church home in the city was necessary. The property where the present church in Hamilton is located, on King Street, was purchased and after dedicated efforts on the part of the members they were able to move into the structure in 1934.

One year later in 1935 a third Church began in St. George’s. The members met in rented quarters until 1954 when they bought the historic Cooper estate on York Street. They dedicated it free of debt in 1957.

Information given by Mrs. Ella Rose Simmons.

Believing that “to everything there is a season” and that nothing that ‘man’ could do would speed the evangelism process in the western end of the island, the members waited patiently for a sign from the Lord that would give them some indication to enter.

In the late thirties, early forties, the Oddfellows Hall on Portland

Square became the general meeting place for the Somerset Community. Many public orators used the stage to expound on every topic from politics to medicine. This became the point in history were Adventism finally found its roots, in the Somerset community.

The outcome of a series of meetings held by laymen from Hamilton brought the first fruits of many years of prayers and effort on the part of the members. June 20th, 1943 witnessed the baptism of some of the first people from the community of Somerset. Mrs. Rosadora Smith Wilson, Mrs. Elsa Jones and Mrs. Ella Rose Simmons, were baptised by Pastor J.F. Knipschild.

For a year after their baptism Mrs. Simmons and family of seven children along with three other families, those of Ms. Jones, Mrs. Emily Philpot and Mrs. Smith-Wilson, met in Somerset every Sabbath where they conducted a branch Sabbath school in the Samaritan’s Hall at West Side. The following year the branch Sabbath School disbanded and so for the first time

the families officially joined the Southampton Church at Jews Bay.

According to Sis Ella Rose Simmons, the first major evangelistic series was held in Somerset in the 1950’s. Pastor Appleyard, an American evangelist conducted a crusade. His theme being “More, More about Jesus.”

Mrs. Simmons was the crusade pianist. Although there were no immediate returns from the effort, once again the seeds that had been sown so many years earlier were being nourished.

During the autumn of 1970 Byron S. Spears was invited to run a crusade in Bermuda that yielded quite a few souls. At the end of his series in Hamilton he was asked by the President to continue the meetings at Sandy’s Secondary School in Somerset, out of which a Company, that was to become the church in Somerset, was born.

Mr. William Browne, a former principal of Bermuda Institute and his wife continued to give the Company the motivation they needed to go forward. Eventually Pastor R.A. James, then the pastor of the Southampton church was assigned to the Somerset area and had to divide his time equally between the two churches. Several members from the Southampton Church were also asked to be charter members. This list included:

Mr. & Mrs. Maxwell Scott

Mr. & Mrs. Maxwell Thompson

Mr. & Mrs. Cockburn Rayner

Mrs. Veace Vickers

Ms. Marlene Carmichael

Mrs. Susan Thompson Hassell

Mr. Glenn Scott

Mr. Glen Curtis

Mrs. Ismay Barker

Mr. Fred Anderson

Mr. & Mrs. Ernest Simmons

Mr. Edward Durrah (deceased)

Ms. Elizabeth Thompson

Ms. Edith Durrah

Mr. Dan Van Lowe

Ms. Elsa Jones

Mrs. Patricia Darrell Robinson

Mr. Willard Robinson

Mrs. Patience Godfrey

Mr. Gladstone Simmons

Between 1973 and 1974, toward the end of the leadership of Pastor R. James, Somerset laymen Brothers Maxwell Thompson and Cockburn Rayner began negotiating for a piece of property on Beacon Hill road, which belonged to the late John Fowle. Pastor James was transferred before the negotiations were confirmed. So, it was with the assistance of the President of Bermuda Mission and the newly assigned Pastor to the area Carlyle Simmons,

that the negotiations for the purchase of the property was completed.

Shortly thereafter, on August 20th, 1977, a ground breaking ceremony was performed and thus commenced the construction of a fine edifice to the honor and glory of God. There is much that has gone unsaid. There is much that goes without saying. Now seven years later with a church membership of one hundred and forty-one we have finally realized a goal which some would not have dared to dream.

The mountain that had in 1970 seemed unconquerable or insurmountable is now but a grain of sand under foot. The territory that reaped no souls in the 1930s is now wide open to receive the message. The same Master who almost 2,000 years ago commanded the apostles to go forward and preach, has also spoken to us here in Somerset. Like the apostles we have accepted the challenge and armed with Faith and the Spirit, we have no movements but forward ones. Our prayer daily is that the Father provide us the experiences and the strength necessary to go on. We thank you Lord.

Rosemary Tyrrell.

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Brief History

The Somerset Seventh-day Adventist church was born in the autumn of 1970 after Pastor Byron S. Spears conducted an evangelistic crusade at the Sandys Secondary School hall. At the end of that crusade, the Somerset Company was formed with twenty members.

For two weeks following the crusade, the company continued to meet at Sandys Secondary hall, but then moved to the Masonic Lodge on Somerset Road where they remained for the next eleven years.

The challenge for the Company of twenty, who had committed themselves to establishing, with the help of God, a church in Somerset, came in a seed thought taken from Selected Messages, Vol. II, p 381, 382 and presented by Elder Carl Currie, the then president of the Bermuda Mission. “Every soul united to Christ will be a living missionary to all around him. He will labour for those near and those afar off.”

Mindful of their mission, Brothers Maxwell Thompson and Cockburn Rayner began, between 1973 and 1974, to search for property in the Somerset area to erect a church home. In 1974, with the arrival of the newly assigned pastor, Pastor Carlyle Simmons, and with the assistance of the President of Bermuda Mission, Pastor Robert H. Carter, the congregation was successful in acquiring property on Beacon Hill Road from the Fowle family, who were delighted to have their property used for the building of a church, and for the development of young people. Shortly after the purchase, a groundbreaking ceremony was held, and thus commenced the construction of a church to the honour and glory of God.

In 1981, with a congregation of one hundred and forty-one devoted members, the Lord blessed the Somerset congregation to dedicate their church home without having to borrow funds from the banks. Today, the Somerset Church family continues “in the business of saving souls.” It has adopted as its mission statement “Reaching Out, Touching Lives.” From twenty committed members in 1970 to three hundred and sixty-four in 2009, the Somerset Church is a “Beacon of light on Beacon Hill.”

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