Many Baptist churches of the South yet lie in ruins or at least disrepair, a byproduct of the recent war, perhaps none more so than in the state of Virginia. Today’s Richmond Daily Dispatch carries an article about one such church. “The Rev. Mr. Taylor, a native of Richmond, and pastor of the Baptist Church…
Today’s Franklin, Virginia newspaper summarizes the post-war trajectory of local freedmen in Methodist and Baptist life in Staunton since the end of the war, describing an unusually cooperative arrangement between the city’s white and black Baptists. “At the recent session of the Methodist Conference in Washington, Bishop Simpson and a colored preacher, the Rev. Mr.…
In Falls County, Texas is a recently-formed congregation of freedmen who following emancipation withdrew from the white-led church they were forced to attend and formed their own autonomous church. Sixteen charter members comprised the Cedar Grove Baptist Church. Today the church’s first baptisms take place in the nearby Brazos River. Cold, freezing weather does not…