The Free Will Baptist Church in America grew up on two separate fronts: North and South.
In the South the denomination began in 1727 when Paul Palmer started a church in Chowan, North Carolina.
The work in the north began with a congregation organized by Benjamin Randall in 1780 at New Durham, New Hampshire.
African-Americans organized their first separate congregation, Shady Grove Free Will Baptist Church, at Snow Hill, Greene County, North Carolina, in 1867.
The first General Conference for United Free Will Baptists convened at St. John's church in Kinston, North Carolina, on May 8, 1901.