Joseph Harden

Joseph Harden (1824–1864) was an African American missionary whose proselytizing activity was in West Africa. Harden founded the First Baptist Church in Lagos and laid the foundation of the Baptist Academy in Lagos.

Life Harden was born free to parents who had known slavery, his father was of the Methodist Faith and Harden was baptized as a Methodist before switching to the Southern Baptist Church. Upon his switch, he became a member of the Saratoga Street African Baptist Church in Baltimore.

When the Southern Baptist Convention established a Foreign Mission Board to sponsor missionary activities, a mission station was to be established in China and in West Africa, the presence of ex-slaves in Liberia was thought by the Baptist to be a suitable location to convert Africans to Christianity. Harden, a member of a Baptist church in Maryland was nominated by the mission board to relocate to Liberia for missionary duties. The station was the first in Lagos, Harden later opened a tutoring class which became Baptist Academy. He married Sarah Marsh, a saro who later played an important role in the sustenance of the Baptist church in Lagos.