Essek William Kenyon (1867-1948) was an evangelist, pastor of the New Covenant Baptist Church, and president of a Bible Institute, Bethel Bible Institute in Spencer, Massachusetts, for twenty-five years. The school later moved to Providence, Rhode Island, and became Providence Bible Institute. It later became Barrington College, and in a fateful irony, merged with Gordon College, named after one of Kenyon's many mentors, Adoniram Gordon. Later that year, Kenyon joined the Free Will Baptists and pastored a small church in Elmira, New York.