Following a number of letters written on his behalf to U.S. president Andrew Johnson, including one by Richard Fuller, Baltimore pastor and former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Baptist minster and editor J. R. Graves is granted amnesty.
The former resident of Nashville, Tennessee returns to the state and settles in Memphis, where for 28 years he serves as a Baptist pastor and editor.
Northward, the newly-formed Delaware Avenue Baptist Church congregation in Wilmington, Delaware, holds their first services this day. Some of the earliest church services are held in a local “engine-house” or fire house.
In 1870 the congregation dedicates its first building.
Sources: Oxford Baptist Institute Bulletin, Mississippi, July-August, 2010, as reprinted on the BaptistHistoryHomepage (link); John T. Scharf, History of Delaware, 1888, pp. 722-725, as reprinted on the BaptistHistoryHomepage (link); David E. Gregg, “Amnesty for J. R. Graves” (link)
