Today leading freedmen of South Carolina gather in Charleston for the first Colored People’s Convention of the State of South Carolina. In the heart of the old Confederacy, they meet in Zion Presbyterian Church. Many Baptists are among those present. The intent of the convention is to begin charting a positive course forward for African…
The American Baptist Home Mission Society appoints Rev. H. M. Tupper as a missionary in the South, “leaving the particular field to be determined.” That field turns out to be Raleigh, North Carolina. Tupper and the mission society had earlier discussed the prospects in Raleigh. In so discussing, Tupper made clear his “desire to labor…
As battles rage on the outskirts of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Henry Martin Tupper, born in 1831 in Monson, Massachusetts, today graduates from American (Northern) Baptists’ Newton Theological Institution (otherwise known as Newton Seminary). The war may have seemed distant to Tupper during his studies at Newton, but within weeks of graduation, on July…