Bethel Baptist Church, Fairview, Kentucky
Today is Sunday, but church services are not the only matter occupying the minds of Baptists in Richmond, Virginia.
Jefferson Davis and his family — wife, Varina, and children Margaret, Jefferson Jr. and Joseph — arrive in Richmond and are greeted by enthusiastic Virginians. Davis’s arrival is in conjunction with the moving of the Confederate capital from Montgomery, Alabama to Richmond, to formally take place tomorrow.
Davis’s father was a Baptist, and in 1886 Davis donates the property of his first childhood home to the Bethel Baptist Church of Fairview, Kentucky. The church stands on the spot where the Confederate president was born in 1808.
During the 1886 church building dedication service, the former Confederate States president offers the following reflections:
“It is with heart full of emotion that I thank you for commemorating the spot of my nativity by building this temple to the Triune God. In reply to the question why I am not a Baptist I would only say that my father who was a much better man than myself was a Baptist. I left this place during my infancy, and after an absence of many years revisited it on a previous occasion. On both visits I have felt like saying, “This is my own, my native land.” I see around me now in this beautiful house of worship, the most gratifying use to which the spot of my birth could be devoted. It speaks highly for this community that the most commodious and handsome of all its buildings belongs to God. It shows your reverence and love for your Creator. I rejoice to hear of the continued progress and prosperity of my old home. I am not here for the purpose of making a speech nor would I mar the effect of this solemn dedication, nor of the beautiful and eloquent sermon to which you have listened, by attempting one. I came only to tend to you formally the site on which this building stands. May He who rules the heavens bless this community individually and collectively and may his benediction rest upon this house of worship always. I thus leave it with you. More than this it would be improper for me to say.”
Source: Bethel Baptist Church brief history (link)
