According to some sources, a new Alabama Baptist newspaper is established today with the first publication of the bi-weekly Christian Herald at Moulton.
Josephus Shackelford (1830-1915) is the editor.
From the 1850s to the present Shackleford pastored a number of churches in the Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama region, while also teaching at various small Baptist institutions. In addition, he served in the War with Mexico and the Civil War, becoming a military chaplain during the latter. Returning home before the war ended, in the years following he worked as an educator and minister. Now, he is in the newspaper business.
Two decades of ministerial, educational and newspaper work later, Shackelford becomes the associate editor of the Alabama Baptist in 1886. In that position he remains for only a year before turning his attention elsewhere, including politics, in which capacity he serves in the Alabama legislature.
By the time of his death in 1915, Josephus Shackelford is counted among the most prominent of Alabama’s citizenry.
Sources: F. Wilbur Helmbold, “Baptist Periodicals in Alabama, 1835-1873” (link); Josephus Shackleford, History of the Muscle Shoals Baptist Association from 1820 to 1890, Trinity, Alabama: 1891, p. 85 (link)
