In the late 1750s, the Marshalls founded a Separate Baptist church at Abbott’s Creek in North Carolina. There Martha served alongside her husband and “was noted for her zeal and eloquence,” and she “added greatly to the interest of meetings conducted by her husband.” The first difficulty the new church encountered was that no minister would cooperate with Stearns in ordaining Daniel. A pastor in South Carolina refused to participate in an ordination service because Daniel and the Separate Baptists “allowed women to pray in public and illiterate men to preach, and encouraged noise and confusion in their meetings.” The ordination service finally took place when Elder Ledbetter, Daniel’s brother-in-law, agreed to participate in the ordination.