Greenwood Lee

A preaching station used by William Mitchell and David Crossley, who were Heptonstall cousins. William Mitchell, described as the Father of Baptist causes in this part of the North of England, was born in Heptonstall in 1663. In 1684, he began an itinerant preaching ministry and, as a Dissenter, he was twice arrested and imprisoned in York Castle. In 1686, he was committed from Wakefield Sessions for 'ryott and unlawful assembly'. Mitchell was joined by his cousin David Crossley - also born in Heptonstall in 1669 and reported to be the largest man in Yorkshire. He had embraced Baptist views and Mitchell also became a Baptist. They set up preaching stations in houses across West Yorkshire and East Lancashire. Some 20 groups, which came together in the Rossendale Confederacy, became Baptist. Mitchell remained in the North, but Crossley was a rolling stone and a somewhat wayward character. His adventures took him to the Midlands and London before returning north. Mitchell died in 1705 and Crossley in 1744.

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