Faith and Begorrah | Ray City History Blog

Louisa Bird Peurifoy: Minister’s Wife

June 25, 2022 at 1:09 am (Faith and Begorrah, Uncategorized, Wiregrass Methodists)
Tags: Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves, Alachua Mission, Anderson Peeler, Behethland Brooks, Bethlehem Camp Ground, Bishop William Capers, Bunker Hill FL, Bunker Hill Plantation, Camp Carter FL, Captain Ayles B. Shehee, Captain Daniel Bird, Coffee Road, Cuthbert GA, Daniel Bascomb Peurifoy, Daniel McCranie, Ebenezer J. Perkins, Edgefield County SC, Edmund Penn, Edward Minchin, Eliza Peurifory, Elizabeth Peurifoy, Elizabeth Simkins, Emmala Simkins, Florida Territory, Fort Gaines Female Institute, Grooverville GA, Hamilton Sharpe, Hephzibah GA, House Committee on Indian Depredation Claims, Independent College for Young Men, James Osgood Andrew, Jefferson County FL, Jesse Simkins, John Bellamy, John Dean, Jones & Bailey Co., Lawrence Simkins, Lebanon Church, Leon County FL, Louisa Ann Bird, Lovic Pierce Peurifoy, Lowndes County GA, Lucinda Brooks, Lumpkin GA, Martha C. Peurifoy, Mary I. Peurifoy, Methodist circuit-riders, Milledgeville GA, Mitchell Brady Jones, Monticello FL, Mount Zion Campground, Nacoosa Plantation, New Hope Church, Old St. Augustine Road, Peurifoy Massacre, Robert Hudson Howren, Rock Spring Camp Ground, Samuel James Douglas, Sereno Taylor, Sharpe's Store Road, Shoulderbone Creek, Smith Simkins, Sparta GA, St. Mary's GA, Superior Court of the Middle District of Florida, Thomas Robinson, Thomasville & Madison Road, Thomasville GA, Tillman Dixon Peurifoy, Troupville Circuit, Troupville GA, Uriah Kemp, Waukeenah FL, Waynesboro GA, William McCauley, William Peurifoy, Zachariah S. Brooks

Previous Next

Louisa Bird Peurifoy (1816-1878) was the wife of Reverend Tillman Dixon Peurifoy (1809-1872), a circuit-riding Methodist preacher who served on the Troupville Circuit in Lowndes County, GA in 1840. Old Lowndes County then also encompassed much of present day Berrien, Cook, Tift, Lanier and Echols counties and Troupville was the county seat for the pioneer settlers of Ray City, GA. In 1838, the Peurifoys lived in the Florida Territory, about 20 miles from Tallahassee. On the night of Saturday, March 31, 1838, while Reverend Peurifoy was away at a Methodist conference meeting, his family and African Americans he enslaved were massacred by Indians. The two PePrevious Nexturifoy children and three enslaved people were killed in the attack. Mrs. Peurifoy was horribly wounded.

Louisa Bird Peurifoy, wife of Reverend Tilman Dixon Peurifoy, survived an Indian attack in Jefferson County, Florida Territory on April 1, 1838.

Digital likeness of Louisa Bird Peurifoy reconstructed using AI technology.

Louisa Ann Bird Peurifoy was born September 10, 1816 in Edgefield County, SC. She was a daughter of Lucinda Brooks and Captain Daniel Bird. Her father, a native of Virginia, was a wealthy cotton planter and breeder of fine race horses. He owned hundreds of acres of land and twenty enslaved people. “In 1817 he was elected to the South Carolina House of Representatives where he served in the Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth General Assemblies (1818-1822). In 1822 he was elected Clerk of Court for the Edgefield District in which office he served from 1822 until 1830.“

It appears in Louisa’s early childhood the family lived on one of her father’s plantations. When she was about nine, her father moved the family into Halcyon Grove, a magnificent mansion he had built near the Edgefield court house.

Halcyon Grove, Edgefield, SC. The mansion, built by Captain Daniel Bird, still serves as a residence today.

“The house was three stories, including the full attic. Two huge chimneys were at each end, providing fire places for the front rooms on the first and second floors. Two smaller chimneys were behind for the back rooms. The front porch was a narrow, two-story portico which was common in the early antebellum period. (This would later be changed to the porch we see today which extends across the entire front of the house.) Other architectural features included elaborately-carved mantelpieces, wainscoting, and an arch dividing the downstairs hallway. Additionally there were fanlights over the main hall doors upstairs and down, and a partially hidden staircase at the back hall leading to the second floor. The hardware for all of the doors was brass and of the best quality, for the hinges and locks have lasted for nearly two centuries. By any standards, this was, as a later commentator described it, ‘a handsome establishment, and a large and comfortable one.’”
The Story of Halcyon Grove

Louisa’s mother, Lucinda Brooks, died in 1826, and her father subsequently married Mrs. Behethland Brooks Simkins, sister of his deceased wife. The step-mother, Mrs. Simkins, was the widow of Jesse Simkins who had left her possessed of lands, money and enslaved people. Mrs. Simkins had four children of her own; Elizabeth Simkins, Emmala Simkins, Smith Simkins and Lawrence Simkins who became Louisa’s step-siblings.

In 1830, Captain Bird’s household was enumerated in Edgefield County, SC with his wife and their nine children, and 14 enslaved people. Around that time, Captain Bird purchased a tract of land in Jefferson County in the Florida Territory, just south of the line of Lowndes County, GA. In 1832, Captain Bird moved his family, enslaved people and household goods from South Carolina to settle in Jefferson County, Florida Territory. The Bird’s most likely route through Wiregrass Georgia would have been via the Coffee Road which was opened up in 1827, the same year Jefferson County was created, and which ran from Jacksonville, GA to Tallahassee, FL. Arriving in Florida, the Birds first alighted at Waukeenah, about 11 miles south of Monticello, FL. Waukeenah was a resting point for travelers on the Old St. Augustine road (also known as the Bellamy Road), which ran from St. Augustine to Tallahassee to Pensacola, Florida.

Section of the Old St. Augustine Road near Tallahassee, FL. Image source: Public Domain.

Within a very short while, Captain Bird relocated to “Bunker Hill”, about 10 miles northwest of Monticello, FL where he established a large plantation. Bunker Hill was a rise on the mail route from Thomasville, GA to Monticello, FL; A post office with mail delivery every two weeks had been established there in 1829. Later Captain Bird bought a second plantation named “Nacoosa” south of Monticello, which had been the home of Abram Bellamy (Jefferson County Library Digital History Project). By 1860, Bunker Hill Plantation and Nacoosa Plantation together comprised 1600 acres, where Bird worked 44 enslaved people.

Detail of A.J. Johnson's 1863 map of Florida with locations of Waukeena, Monticello, Bunker Hill and Tallahassee, and in Georgia the locations of Grooverville, Thomasville, and Troupville. — Detail of A.J. Johnson’s 1863 map of Florida with locations of Waukeena, Monticello, Bunker Hill and Tallahassee, and in Georgia the locations of Grooverville, Thomasville, and Troupville.

On June 13, 1833, Louisa Ann Bird married Tillman Dixon Peurifoy in Jefferson County, FL. The bride was 17 years old, the groom 25. Purifoy was a circuit riding Methodist minister who had been sent to Jefferson County to support the Methodist Episcopal Church’s mission in the Florida Territory, and a contemporary of Wiregrass circuit riders George W. Davis, Robert H. Howren, George Bishop, Capel Raiford, Robert Stripling, and John Slade. T.D. Peurifoy was a son of William Peurifoy born January 21, 1809 in Putnam County, GA. He had been baptized into the Methodist faith at the age of 15. The Southern Christian Advocate said, “He commenced in the old Methodist way, leading the class, holding prayer-meetings in the neighbor hood, etc., and soon became very popular among the people, and useful in the church.” At 19 he was admitted as a minister in the Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. His father died the following year, and by age 21, he was appointed by the Georgia Conference to a station at Waynesboro, GA, riding on horseback to preach in communities in the area.

Announcement of Methodists Camp Meetings in the Milledgeville District, published July 1, 1833

After marriage, Louisa and Tillman D. Peurifoy did not immediately settle in the Florida Territory. In October, 1833, Reverend Peurifoy was in Sparta, GA. Great camp meetings attended by thousands of Methodists were held at Shoulderbone Creek near Sparta. In those days, Methodists held camp meetings all over Georgia. In Lowndes County an annual Methodist revival was held at the old Lowndes Camp Ground, later called the Mount Zion Camp Ground.

In Putnam County, the Methodist gathered at the Rock Spring Camp Meeting. On October 4, 1833, while attending the camp meeting at Rock Spring, Reverend Peurifoy’s brother was robbed of a fine pocket watch, of the lever type; The lever escarpment mechanism, popularized in the 1820s, made a significant advancement in the accuracy of pocket watches.

October 16, 1833, Milledgeville Southern Recorder.

For the year 1834 the church assigned Reverend Peurifoy to the Cedar Creek station near Milledgeville, Baldwin County, GA.

“It is located in perhaps the most beautiful valley in Georgia. Cedar Creek, a considerable stream, clear as
crystal, meanders through the valley, and along its banks are lands unsurpassed in fertility. The mountains are round about. Attracted by the beauty and fertility of the valley, many citizens of culture and wealth removed to it, and it became and has continued to this day a most delightful station.” (- A History of Methodism in Georgia & Florida) The Cedar Creek Circuit covered some 1,400 square miles and ran through Jasper, Jones and Baldwin County, and a part of Putnam County, which was the county of Rev. Peurifoy’s birth. “Clinton, the county-site of Jones, was an appointment in the old Cedar Creek Circuit. It was a place of considerable importance, being in the midst of a fine cotton-producing country. In it there was much wealth and style, and alas ! infidelity and dissipation.“

At the January 1835 meeting of the Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, young Reverend Peurifoy was serving in the St. Mary’s District. The conference was poorly attended “owing to the inclement weather.” It was reported that 27 ministers had not returned to appointments because of retirement or other reasons. Seventeen new ministers were appointed on trial. Peurifoy was one the few ministers in the conference without an appointment.

By 1838 Louisa had given her husband two children, Elizabeth Peurifoy and Lovic Pierce Peurifoy. Reverend Peurifoy was assigned to the Alachua Mission in the Florida Territory. The mission station was about two miles from the plantation home of Louisa’s father, Captain Daniel Bird and about twelve miles from Suwannee Springs, FL. The Peurifoys worked, and worked their enslaved people to carve a homestead for the Peurifoys out of the wilderness.

It was a perilous time to be on the southern frontier. There was a rising storm of conflict between the growing European-American population and Native Americans who violently resisted subjugation and removal to lands west of the Mississippi. Indians and whites spilled blood across Wiregrass Georgia and Florida. The Indian Wars had been underway since 1836. In Berrien County, GA skirmishes had been fought along the Alapaha River and a battle at Brushy Creek. In 1838, Captain Levi J. Knight had a militia company in the field in south Georgia.

But in the Florida Territory it was said the real fighting was a hundred miles distant from the area where the Peurifoys were homesteading, and part of Rev. Peurifoy’s Methodist mission was ministry to the Indians. He continued in his work and travels in the Alachua Mission, undoubtedly thinking his family was safe enough on their north Florida homestead.

That sense of security was shattered when the Peurifoy home place was destroyed. Louisa, her children and the Peurifoy’s enslaved people were at the homestead on the evening of March 31, 1838 when the Indians attacked. Her husband was away at a meeting of the church conference perhaps a two- or three-days ride distant. Within days, vivid accounts of the massacre were widely circulated in newspapers across the Wiregrass.

Reports of the Peurifoy massacre first appeared in the Tallahassee Floridian edition of Saturday, April 6, 1838. The report was reprinted in the Edgefield Advertiser on April 19, 1838. Mrs. Peurifoy was a native of Edgefield, SC.

– On Saturday evening last, about dark, a party of Indians, supposed to number 30 or 40, attacked the dwelling of Mr. Purifoy, residing in the vicinity of the previous depredations, murdered two children and three negroes, plundered and set fire to the buildings, and made their escape – the children were burned in the dwelling. Mrs. Purifoy, although severely wounded, miraculously made her escape from the savages. When the attack was made there were none but females about the premises, a fact supposed to have been known to the Indians. Mrs. P. was lying in bed with her two children, heard a noise in her room and on looking up found it filled with Indians, who commenced discharging their rifles, several of them aimed at herself and children. The children it is supposed were killed at once. Mrs. P. received a ball in her shoulder, which passed out at her breast. The savages next commenced hacking and stabbing her with their knives, and inflicted a number of severe wounds on her head and several parts of her body. Their attention was a moment directed from her to a noise made by the servants in an adjoining room, when Mrs. P. taking advantage of this circumstance escaped to the yard, where she was again shot down, but succeeded in gaining the woods, intending to reach her father’s residence, Capt. Daniel Bird, about two miles distant. Faint from the loss of blood and the severity of wounds, she was unable to proceed more than half a mile, where she was found next morning.   Mrs. P. received, we understand, ten distinct wounds, several very severe, but her physician entertains strong hopes of her recovery. – To heighten the catastrophe, Mr. Purifoy, whose children and slaves were slain, was absent from home, fulfilling his ministerial duties.
     As soon as the attack was discovered, the troops at Camp Carter, under Capt. Shehee, were sent for, but the Indians had dispersed in three parties and fled. Maj. Taylor with Capt. Newsam’s company joined Capt. S. on Monday morning, and have followed the several trails, but with what success we have not understood.
   The house attacked is several miles within the frontier settlements – the houses of most of which are picketed in. We trust the occurrence will awaken the United States authorities to do something more for the protection of our frontier. – Tallahassee Floridian

The wounded Louisa was carried on a makeshift stretcher to her father’s house. Most thought her wounds so grievous she could not live. When a letter carrying word of the attack reached Reverend Peurifoy at the conference he rushed home, but could not have arrived sooner than four or five days after the attack. Louisa, gravely wounded, was still clinging to life. In anguish, Rev. Peurifoy wrote a letter to his friend William Capers, a fellow Methodist minister and editor of the Southern Christian Advocate. Capers published the letter and news of the Peurifory Massacre was printed in newspapers around the world.

In time, Louisa got better, although some said she never fully recovered. Her little children, her home, her furnishings, all her possessions were lost. Of their Florida homestead, only the 11 surviving African-Americans enslaved by the Peurifoys remained.

Within months of the attack, Tillman Dixon Peurifoy submitted a claim to the federal government seeking compensation for “slaves killed by Indians.” Under an act of Congress, citizens were entitled to receive payment for their loss of “slave property.” But the House Committee on Indian Depredation Claims found adversely for Peurifoy’s claim, as the Government was “not liable for the loss of private property taken by the public enemy in time of war.“

Tilman Dixon Peurifoy claim for Indian Depredations, United States House of Representatives.

January 22, 1839
Read, and laid upon the table.

Mr. Giddings from the Committee of Claims, submitted the following REPORT:

The Committee of Claims, to whom was committed the petition of T. D. Peurify, report:

That the memorialist, in his petition, states that, on the first day of April, A. D. 1838, during the temporary absence of the petitioner, the Indians burnt his dwelling-house, situated in Jefferson county, in the Territory of Florida, destroyed his personal property, (including his household furniture,) and murdered three of his slaves, for which he asks indemnity.
The committee view the claim, as stated by the petitioner, to be one of those cases of loss by Indian depredations which have so often come before the committee and the House of Representatives, and on which indemnity has been uniformly refused. The Committee refer to the report of the Committee of Claims upon the memorial of the Legislature of the State of Alabama, made at the last session of the present Congress, (vide Reps. of Com. vol. 4, No. 932,) where the principles of that report, and recommend to the House the adoption of the following resolution:
Resolved, That the petition is not entitles to relief.
Thomas Allen, print.

After the massacre, Tillman Dixon Peurifoy took his wife and surviving enslaved people out of the Florida Territory and returned to Georgia. In the census of 1840 Tillman and Louisa, now with a young son, and 11 enslaved people were enumerated at Grooverville, GA. Grooverville was at the crossing of the Thomasville & Madison Road, and Sharpe’s Store Road, perhaps 15 miles east northeast of Bunker Hill. Lebanon Church, the Methodist house of worship at Grooverville, had been established about 1832.

Tillman D. Peurifoy was then appointed to the Troupville station in the Florida District, Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Troupville, GA about 30 miles east of Grooverville, was then the seat of government of Lowndes County, GA. Troupville was the center of commerce and social activity for the region. The town was situated immediately in the fork made by the confluence of the Withlacoochee and Little rivers. It was the site of the Lowndes County courthouse and jail, hotels, Methodist and Baptist churches, stores, shops, doctors and lawyers. Among residents of the town circa 1840 were William McAuley, Hiram Hall, John Studstill, William Lastinger, Joseph S. Burnett, William McDonald, William D. Branch, Jonathan Knight, William Smith, and James O. Goldwire. “Of the merchants who did business there in the old days, were Moses and Aaron Smith, E. B. Stafford, Uriah Kemp, and Alfred Newburn,” according to an 1899 Sketch of Old Lowndes County. The Knight family, who were the original pioneer settlers of present day Ray City, GA, were among the prominent citizens of Lowndes County who frequented the town.

In January, 1841 the Peurifoys likely suffered yet another setback when floodwaters of the Harrison Freshet inundated Troupville. The low-lying town was completely flooded. When the annual Georgia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church convened in Macon, GA that month, Robert Howren was appointed to Troupville. No station appointment was reported for Tillman D. Peurifoy.

Between tragic losses in 1838 and possibly further difficulties in the flood of 1841, the Peurifoys were struggling financially. To get by Rev. Peurifoy was forced to borrow money from wealthier men in the area. He borrowed from John Bellamy, a planter in the Florida Territory; Thomas County, GA plantation owner Mitchell Brady Jones; Postmaster Daniel McCranie; Ebenezer J. Perkins; Thomas Robinson; and others. Given Wiregrass Georgia’s burgeoning slave economy, many of these loans were secured or settled through the mortgaging, selling or trading of enslaved peoples. Peurifoy himself was enumerated in the 1840 Census as the owner of 14 enslaved people. In the Grooverville district of Thomas County where the Peurifoys lived, more than half of the residents were enumerated as “owners” of enslaved African Americans. In Thomas County, the population in 1840 was 3,836 whites and 2,930 enslaved African-Americans; by 1860 the enslaved population of Thomas County outnumbered the white population 6,244 to 4,488.

In January, 1842, Tillman D. Peurifoy borrowed $3,500 dollars from John Bellamy (1777-1845), putting up seven enslaved people as collateral for the loan. Bellamy was one of the wealthiest planters and most prominent political figures in the Florida Territory. His 3000 acre plantation was in Jefferson County along the Aucilla River east of Monticello. In 1826, Bellamy had been the government contractor for the construction of the Bellamy Road which was built with the labor of enslaved African Americans, and followed the path of the Old St. Augustine Road from St. Augustine to Tallahassee. Like the Coffee Road in south Georgia, the Bellamy Road did much to open the north Florida Territory for settlement.

In January 1843, Reverend Peurifoy was appointed to the Methodist station for Cuthbert and Fort Gaines, GA on the Chattahoochee River. Fort Gaines was the site of the Fort Gaines Female Institute and the Independent College for Young Men, boarding schools (not colleges as that word is used today) founded by Sereno Taylor, a prominent Baptist minister and owner of four enslaved people.

The financial woes of the Peurifoys continued in 1843. Legal documents show authorities in Leon County, Florida ordered the sale of his goods to settle debts, including the sale of people he enslaved.

Reverend Peurifoy had apparently been unable to repay the loan from John Bellamy and on January 19, 1843 Bellamy petitioned Judge Samuel James Douglas of the Superior Court of the Middle District of Florida for satisfaction. An abstract of the petition states the following without noting the outcome.

John Bellamy seeks to foreclose on a mortgage for seven slaves, signed by Tilman D. Peurifoy on 8 January 1842 as security for a promissory note of $3,500. The plaintiff maintains that Peurifoy has “wholly neglected and refused and still doth refuse to pay the same or any part thereof to your petitioner.” Bellamy asks that the slaves be sold, and if the proceeds of the sale are not sufficient to pay the debt, that other property of Peurifoy be subject to sale.
UNC Race & Slavery Project

In Thomas County, GA the Peurifoys were forced to give up their household possessions to be auctioned off to satisfy debts owed to Thomas Robinson and Daniel McCranie.

Legal advertisement in the Milledgeville Southern Recorder announcing the auction of household goods and personal property belonging to Tilman D. Peurifoy to satisfy debts owed to Thomas Robinson and Daniel McCranie.

In order to satisfy a debt owed to the firm of Jones & Baily the Thomas County Sheriff seized “slave property” of the Peurifoys in the person of the enslaved man Shedrach. The 30-year-old African-American man had likely been born into slavery in the United States to live in bondage his entire life. (The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves went into effect January 1, 1808, although some smuggling of slaves continued in southern states all the way up to the Civil War. But the population of enslaved people continued to grow in the U.S. and the domestic slave trade flourished.)

Legal announcements in the April 25, 1843 edition of the Milledgeville Southern Recorder advertising the forced sale of an enslaved man named Shedrach and household property of Tilman Dixon Peurifoy.

Peurifoy also owed money to Ebenezer J. Perkins and others. Perkins was known as a money lender… and known for assiduously collecting the debts owed to him. Perkins had been indicted in May 1831 “for the offense of malicious mischief in breaking open the door of the boarding house of Isaac P. Brooks to the great annoyance of Mr. Brooks and his boarders.” At one time Perkins had partnered with Hamilton Sharpe, the well-know Methodist, merchant, and postmaster in Lowndes County, GA. In April 1843, Ebenezer J. Perkins, Mitchell B. Jones, and the firm of Jones & Bailey demanded the auction of a Thomasville city lot owned by Peurifoy in order to collect money Peurifoy owed them. A year later, Perkins was stabbed to death after attending the hanging of Samuel Mattox at Troupville, GA.

Thomas Sheriff’s Sales
Will be sold before the Court house door in the town of Thomasville, Thomas county, on the first Tuesday in April next, within the usual hours of sale, the following property, to wit…
one lot in the town of Thomasville, known as No 3, in square letter E, containing one half acre, with all the improvements thereon – levied on as the property of Tilman D. Purifoy to satisfy the following fi fas, two in favor of Mitchell B. Jones, one in favor of Ebenezer J. Perkins, and one in favor of Jones & Bailey, all vs said Tilman D. Purifoy
Milledgeville Southern Recorder, April 04, 1843

Even Reverend Peurifoy’s fellow Methodist ministers were among the debt collectors. Rev. Anderson Peeler, a circuit rider in the Florida District, acquired a lien against Peurify which had originally been filed by Mitchell B. Jones in the Thomas County, GA Inferior Court. At Rev. Peeler’s request the Thomas County Sheriff seized “property” owned Peurifoy to be auctioned off to settle the debt owed to him. The “property” was an enslaved African-American woman named Polly, who had likely suffered all the 50 years of her life in bondage. The “slave auction” was held on the steps of the Thomas County Courthouse, at Thomasville, GA.

Legal announcement advertising the forced sale of Polly, a woman enslaved by Methodist minister Tilman Dixon Peurifoy. The sale was ordered to satisfy debts debts owed to another Methodist minister. Milledgeville Southern Recorder, July 4, 1843.

In 1843, the Georgia Conference of the Methodist church assigned Rev. T.D. Peurifoy to the station at Cuthbert and Ft. Gaines, GA.

James O. Andrew, slave-owning Methodist Bishop, of Georgia. Image source: public domain.

By the 1840s, the ownership of enslaved people by ordained ministers generated substantial controversy within the Methodist Episcopal Church, as the national organization had long opposed slavery. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had been appalled by slavery. Bishop James O. Andrew, of Georgia, was criticized by the 1844 General Convention for his ownership of enslaved people and suspended from office until such time as he should end his “connection with slavery.” Southern members disputed the Convention’s authority to discipline the bishop or to require slave-owning clergy to emancipate the people whom they considered as property. The differences over enslavement of human beings that would divide the nation during the mid-19th century were also dividing the Methodist Episcopal Church. The 1844 dispute led Methodists in the South to break off and form a separate denomination, the Methodist Episcopal Church, South (MEC,S), that accommodated slave ownership for its leaders as well as its members. By 1850 the U.S. Census of “Slave Inhabitants” of Georgia shows that Bishop James O. Andrew was the “slave owner” of 24 enslaved people.

Rev. T.D. Peurifoy was given the station at Lumpkin, GA for 1844. In January 1845, he was preaching in the Augusta District and assigned to the Waynesboro station. His circuit then included New Hope Church at Hephzibah, GA, one of the unheated, hewn log churches of the old pioneer days. “It was the rule or custom of this church to construe attendance upon its ‘love feasts’ for three consecutive occasions as prima facie evidence of a desire to enter its communion.” By about 1847, the membership had dwindle such that it ceased to serve as a house of worship.

In 1845, The Peurifoys were still deeply in debt. Louisa Peurifoy’s grandfather Zachariah S. Brooks gave her three enslaved people; a young African-American woman, her daughter, and her ten-year-old brother. These three enslaved people were deeded to Edmund Penn to hold in trust for Louisa, likely a move to protect this “slave property” from seizure by her husband’s creditors and to assure that they remained Louisa’s “property.” But in 1854, the Peurifoys would petition the State of South Carolina to break the trust and allow them to sell the enslaved young man, now 19 years-of-age.

Petition to the Chancellors of the State of South Carolina
Abstract:
Louisa and T. D. Peurifoy seek to sell a slave, whom she holds in trust. In 1845, Louisa’s grandfather, Zachariah S. Brooks, deeded to “Edmund Penn three negro slaves to wit Emily & her child Sarah & her brother Allen to be had & held in trust for” Louisa. Allen “is now about nineteen years old & is stout and able-bodied– but the said Allen is at the same time refractory, insubordinate & unruly.” The Peurifoys “have endeavored to control & govern him but in vain– that the said Allen will not submit to their authority or discipline & the result has been that the said slave contributes but little to their comfort or profit.” The Peurifoys pray that the court authorize Penn “to make sale” of Allen “and to invest the proceeds of such sale in the purchase of one or more negro slaves of more docile & submissive character.”
UNC Digital Library on American Slavery

The Peurifoys remained in the area of Augusta for the next couple of years. In 1846 they were living at The Rocks, about five miles from the city. They continued to sell off or rent out their enslaved people.

T.D. Peurifoy offers enslaved people for sale or rent in a September 27, 1846 advertisement in the Augusta Daily Chronicle

In 1846 Reverend T. D. Purifoy’s station was the Columbia Circuit. In 1847, he was sent to the Louisville Station.

Meanwhile, back in Florida, debt collectors were still after Peurifoy for the money he had borrowed from John Bellamy in 1842. Bellamy had died in 1845, but the Administrator of the Estate sought satisfaction in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, FL. Whether Peurifoy responded to the court order to return to Florida or ever made good on the debt is not known.

Reverend Tilman D. Peurifoy summoned to appear before the Circuit Court of Jefferson County, Florida. Legal advertisement, Tallahassee Floridian, December 18, 1847.

Some time before 1850, the Peurifoys left Georgia and returned to Louisa’s roots in Edgefield County, SC, about 25 miles north of Augusta, GA. The 1850 enumeration of the Peurifoys in the Edgefield District lists Reverend and Mrs. Peurifoy, and their children, Daniel B. Peurifoy, Mary I. Peurifoy, Martha C. Peurifoy, and Eliza Peurifoy. Also in the Peurifoy household was a carpenter named John Dean.

1850 Census enumeration of Tilman D. Peurifoy and Louisa A. Peurifoy in Edgefield District, South Carolina.

Schedule 2 “Slave Inhabitants” in the 1850 Census shows that Rev. Peurifoy was the “Slave owner” of 14 enslaved people.

The 1850s saw a great revival among the Methodists in Edgefield, SC and Reverend T.D. Peurifoy played a prominent role in organizing the camp meetings that drove the revival spirit. In 1851, Peurifoy served on the Building Committee for Bethlehem Camp Ground

A multitude of religious revivals within the Methodist faith in Edgefield were reported throughout the decade in the pages of the Advertiser. The majority of these occurred at spring and summer camp meetings at both Mount Vernon Camp Ground and Bethlehem Camp Ground, both prominent Methodist camp meeting locations in the county… All of these drew large, passionate crowds and produced large numbers of conversion experiences and increased church membership… These revivals were a very public outpouring of religious fervor, and were instrumental in placing the evangelical faith at the forefront of community life in Edgefield.
– Fighting For Revival

A notice in The Edgefield Advertiser, October 16, 1851 seeking a contractor for construction of an arbor at Bethlehem Camp Ground.

In South Carolina, Peurifoy’s preaching took him to New Chapel Church in Newberry County, about 40 miles north of Edgefield. An intimate friend…says in the Christian Neighbor, “I knew brother Peurifoy in the strength of his manhood, his sermons were pungent and powerful. He possessed the power of sharpening the arrows of truth, and hurling them with tremendous force into the ranks of the enemies of the cross. I first heard him in Newberry at New Chapel. Crowds flocked to hear him, and hung on his lips. Many were awakened and converted.“

In 1855, T.D. Peurifoy was in the Shelbyville District, SC. But in 1856, he was “located” at his own request.

By 1860, it seems the Peurifoys had recovered from their previous debt. In the Census of 1860, Reverend Peurifoy’s real estate and personal property were valued at $22,875, which probably placed him in the top 10 percent of the wealthiest people in the Saluda Regiment, Edgefield District, South Carolina. Tillman Peurifoy’s occupation was given as farming. Much of the Peurifoys wealth was represented in the 15 people they enslaved, who ranged from an 80-year-old woman to a four-year-old girl. The Peurifoy’s son, Daniel, worked as the Overseer.

1860 census enumeration of Louisa Bird and Tillman Dixon Peurifoy, Saluda Regiment, Edgefield District, South Carolina.

It appears Louisa & Tillman Peurifoy remained in Edgefield County throughout the Civil War. Their son, Daniel Bird Peurifoy, served in the Confederate Army.

About 1862, Rev. Peurifoy suffered a paralytic stroke, “his strength failed, but he continued to preach as often as he could.” He was a representative of the Butler Circuit at the July 30, 1868 Cokesbury District Meeting of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South at Edgefield Courthouse. Peurifoy was appointed to the Committee on Family and Religion. His old friend William T. Capers was the delegate from the Cokesbury station.

Children of Louisa Bird and Tillman Dixon Peurifoy (birth dates from census records):

Elizabeth Peurifoy (unknown–1838)
Lovic Pierce Peurifoy (unknown–1838)
Daniel Byrd Peurifoy (1839–1909), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery
Mary Jane Peurifoy (1843–1910), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery
Martha C. Peurifoy (1846–1900), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery
Eliza A. Peurifoy (1849–1872), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery
William Bascom Peurifoy (1854–1927), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery
Julia Butler Peurifoy (1855–1931), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery
Sallie Peurifoy (1858–1931), burial at Butler UMC Cemetery

The Census of 1870 shows that the Peurifoys remained in Edgefield County in the Saluda Division during Reconstruction. Their post office was at Oakland. The value of Peurifoy’s total estate had been reduced to $400 dollars.

1870 Census enumeration of the household of Tillman Dixon Peurifoy and Louisa Peurifoy.

In April, 1872 Reverend Peurifoy had a second stroke, “his work was done. He lingered for several weeks – never murmured, but was patient and resigned to the will of God from the beginning. And when he could no longer tell us, as he frequently had, of the peace and joye he realized through faith in Christ, (having lost the power of speech,) he would make signs with the hand he could move.” Rev. Peurifoy died June 4, 1872. He was buried in the cemetery at Butler Church, Saluda, SC.

The following tribute of respect was passed at Butler Church Conference, South Carolina.

Whereas, It has pleased Almighty God in his wise providence, to take out of this world the soul of our beloved brother, Rev. T. D. Peurifoy; therefore,

Resolved, That in the death of the Rev. T. D. Peurifoy, the Church has lost one of her most faithful ministers, the community one of its most honorable citizens.
2. That although we mourn the sad loss we have sustained in the death of brother Peurifoy, we bow in humble submission to the will of Him whose ways are true and righteous altogether.
3. That this Church Conference tender our hearty sympathies to the wife and children of the deceased, in this their sad bereavement, and commend them to the protection of Him, who has promised that His grace shall be sufficient at all times, for those who love, serve and obey Him.
Rev. G. W. McCreighton, Ch’n.
W. S. Crouch, Sec.
Southern Christian Advocate, October 23, 1872

Louisa Peurifoy died July 4, 1878. She was buried next to her husband in the Butler Church cemetery.

Grave of Louisa A. Peurifoy (1816-1878), wife of Reverend Tilman D. Peurifoy. Butler United Methodist Church Cemetery, Saluda, SC.

Leave a Comment

Reverend Edwin B. Carroll

March 6, 2021 at 12:05 am (Baptists, Faith and Begorrah, Uncategorized)
Tags: Adiel Sherwood, B.F. Elliott, Benajah Harvey Carroll, Berrien Minute Men, Cairo Academy, Camilla Academy, Camilla Literary Club, Campbell Carlton Carroll, Carrollton GA, Charles Adiel Lewis Totten, Charles Gaulden Dilworth, China Grass, Columbian Exposition, Company G 29th Georgia Regiment, Confederate Memorial Day, Cora Ethel Carroll, E. L. Thomas, Edwin B. Carroll, Edwin B. Carroll Jr, Elisha Peck Smith Denmark, Elizabeth Carroll, Friendship Church, Gary Pittman, George I. Jones, Georgia Baptist Convention, Green Street Baptist Church, Hickory Head Baptist Church, Hickory Head GA, Hotel Georgia, J. A. Carey, J. T. Fender, James Albert Carroll, James Carroll, James H. Carroll, James S. Harris, Jesse Carroll, John Lane, John T. Carroll, Johnson's Island, Jonesboro GA, Josphine A. Carroll, Julia E. Chastain, Julia E. Hayes, Julia Emma Carroll, Luther Rice Christie, Madison FL, Mary Elizabeth Carroll, Mercer Baptist Association, Mercer University, Mount Enon Church, N. W. Waterman, Nettie Sherwood, Norman Institute, Ocklocknee Light Infantry, Okapilco Baptist Church, P. H. Murray, Patterson Carroll, Penfield Baptist Church, Pittsburgh Ramie Manufacturing Company, Ramie, Raymond S. Harvey, Robert Hamilton Harris, Robert T. Myddleton, Southern Baptist Convention, Stockton GA, Tenant Mack Robinson, Vineville Baptist Church, William Carey Willis, William J. Carroll, Young Female College

Edwin B. Carroll, Captain of the Berrien Minute Men, Company G, 29th Georgia Regiment.

Reverend Edwin B. Carroll

Rev. Edwin Benajah Carroll was born March 3, 1841 in North Carolina and died at his home in Carrollton, GA on October 13, 1903. He is buried in the Hickory Head Baptist Church Cemetery, Quitman, Brooks County, Georgia.

Edwin B. Carroll was a son of James Carroll and nephew of Jesse Carroll, brothers who were pioneer settlers of that area of old Lowndes County, GA cut into Berrien County in 1856, and which is now Lanier County, GA. Edwin was eight years old when they arrived. The Carrolls were prominent in establishing the Missionary Baptist church in this area.

“In 1857 Daniel B. Carroll (James’ son [and brother of Edwin B. Carroll]) and James S. Harris (James Carroll’s son-in-law) deeded land for a Missionary Baptist Church. Trustees to whom the deed was made were James Carroll, James Dobson, James’ sons John T. [Carroll] and James H. [Carroll], and James S. Harris. Rev. Caswell Howell, who had recently settled here, is said to have been its first pastor. [Rev. Howell was a brother of Barney Howell, who was a mail carrier on the Troupville route.] The church, directly north of today’s courthouse [present day site of Mathis Law office, 64 W. Church Street Lakeland, GA], was built of hand-split lumber with hand-hewn sills, and put together with wooden pegs. The ten-inch-wide ceiling boards were planed by hand.” – Nell Roquemore, in Roots, Rocks and Recollections

After attending local country school Edwin’s father sent him to Marshall College. In 1860 he entered Mercer University where he was a classmate of Robert Hamilton Harris; Both men left the college for service in the Confederate States Army and served in the 29th Georgia Infantry Regiment.

Edwin B. Carroll left the school in 1861 to join the Berrien Minute Men, a Confederate infantry unit in the 29th GA Regiment. He served on coastal artillery in Savannah and in the Atlanta Campaign. He was captured in July, 1864 and spent almost a year in Johnson’s Island Military prison before renouncing Confederate citizenship and taking the Oath of Allegiance to the United States of America. When he was released in June 1865 he 24 years old.

When the War ended, and he returned home, he could find no employment but teaching, in which he has been engaged almost every year since… In October, 1865, he was married to Mrs. Julia E. Hayes, of Thomasville, Georgia. She is all that a preacher’s wife should be.

Minutes of Penfield Baptist Church show he was granted a letter of dismission on April 15, 1866.

The church at Stockton, Georgia, where he was teaching, gave him, unsought, a license to preach, and in 1868, he was ordained at Macedonia Church, without having requested it, by a presbytery consisting of Revs James Williamson and R.S. Harvey. He does not seem to have enjoyed preaching much, however, until 1873. He often made failures, as he thought, at times not speaking more than five minutes before he would take his seat. He has always felt it a cross, but one that he must take up.

The 1870 census of Berrien County, GA shows he was living in Milltown (now Lakeland), GA and working as a school teacher.

His first pastorate was in 1873, at Ocapilco. The same year he accepted a call to Hickory Head, of which he has ever since been pastor. For two years he preached two Sabbaths in the month for the church at Madison, Florida, and for the same length of time, at Valdosta, Georgia. He is now (1880) pastor of Hickory Head and Quitman churches. In these seven years, he has baptized about two hundred persons.

In 1874, he was tendered a professorship in the Young Female College, Thomasville, Georgia, but declined for fear he could not fill it satisfactorily, thus modestly distrusting his own abilities… He is a cousin of Rev. B.H. Carroll [Benajah Harvey Carroll] of Waco, Texas, and of Rev. J.L. Carroll, of Virginia.

Reverend Carroll served as pastor of the Okapilco Baptist Church from January 1873 to November 1875. He served as pastor of Hickory Head Baptist Church from 1873 to 1890. In July 1874, Rev. Carroll conducted a great revival at Hickory Head.

At the 2nd annual session of the Mercer Baptist Association, October 2, 1875 convened at Friendship Church, Brooks County, GA, he was elected clerk of the association. He was also preaching at Madison, FL and occasionally at Valdosta, GA. In addition to preaching, E. B. Carroll was principal of the Hickory Head Academy near Quitman, GA. In politics he favored increasing state funding for education and year round school.

In 1876, E. B. Carroll, along with James McBride, N. A. Bailey and R. W. Phillips formed the presbytery for the ordination of Richard A. Peeples; At the time, Peeples was judge of the County Court of Lowndes County, GA and had previously served as Clerk of the Court in Berrien County.

At the commencement of Mercer University in July 1876 the Board of Trustees conferred on Edwin B. Carroll the degree of Master of Arts. In 1878 he became pastor of the Valdosta Baptist church and preached his first sermon in that capacity on Sunday, February 3, 1878. The Christian Index reported, “He has charge of two churches, and a school, and controls, also, a fine farm.”

He is now [1880] living on his farm, in Brooks County, Georgia, preaching to his two churches and superintending his planting interests, quiet and contented. He is ever full of praise and gratitude to the Giver of all good, and seems to desire only the privilege of living to the glory of God and the good of his fellow-men.

Reverend Carroll and Julia Carroll were the parents of eight children.

James Albert Carroll (1867–1941)
Campbell Carlton Carroll (1870–1899) 1 September 1870 • Berrien County, GA
Mary Elizabeth Carroll (1873–1945) 24 June 1873 • Thomas County, GA
Julia Emma Carroll (1875–1881) 12 October 1875 • Brooks County, GA
Cora Ethel Carroll (1878–) Jan 1878 • Georgia
Edwin B. Carroll, Jr (1879–)Oct 1879 • Georgia
Josephine A. Carroll (1882-1966)
Patterson Carroll (1883-)

From 1879 to 1881 Reverend E. B. Carroll was pastor of the Quitman Baptist Church, preaching in the original frame building which stood on West Screven Street, Quitman, GA.

Reverend E. B. Carroll was one of the 71 Georgia delegates in attendance at the 1879 Southern Baptist Convention convened at Atlanta, GA, May 8, 1879. Among the other delegates were P. H. Mell, E. Z. T. Golden, and C. S. Golden. Rev. Carroll preached the Saturday service at the 1880 Sunday School Convention of the Mercer Baptist Association at Grooverville, GA; Rev. R. A. Peeples preached the Sunday service to a packed church. Reverend E. Z. T. Golden was president of the convention.

For the November 1880 term of the Superior Court of Brooks County, GA, Edwin B. Carroll served as foreman of the Grand Jury.

In early August 1881, the Carroll’s six year old daughter Julia came down sick. After an illness of five weeks, she passed away on a Saturday morning, September 17, 1881 at Hickory Head, GA.

In 1882, Rev. E. B. Carroll preached at the Thomasville Baptist Church, filling in for Rev. Mr. Golden who was on vacation. The town’s other clergy were Rev. Mr. Wynn, Methodist; Rev. Mr. Fogartie, Presbyterian; Rev. Charles C. Prendergast, Catholic; Rev. N. Waterman, African Baptist Church, Rev. J. A. Cary, African Methodist Episcopal.

By 1884, Rev. E. B. Carroll had given up management of the Hickory Head Academy, but continued to serve as pastor of the Hickory Head Baptist Church. He was also preaching at the Baptist Church in Boston, GA

In 1885 Edwin B. Carroll participated in the organization of a Farmer’s Club at Boston, GA. As an investment, he purchased ten acres of land from Mr. G. W. Garrison on the Jones Road near the Thomasville city limit.

In May 1885, he was a delegate at the Southern Baptist Convention held at Green Street Baptist Church, Augusta, GA. On July 4, 1885 it was announced that he had accepted the pastorate of the Baptist Church at Camilla, preaching there the first and third Sundays each month. He was also appointed Principal of the Camilla High School. Later that year he moved his family to Cairo, GA, there taking up the former residence of Mr. Griffin. He was appointed to manage the Cairo Academy, his predecessors being Rev. John Byron Wight and Robert Hamilton Harris, who wrote about his experiences as a lieutenant of the 29th Georgia on Sapelo Island where the Berrien Minute Men had stationed in 1861.

In January 1886 Edwin B. Carroll resigned the pastorate of Hickory Head Church, Brooks County, and accepted a call from Friendship Church in Thomas County. By June of 1886, the Baptist Church at Camilla had raised a salary sufficient to induce Reverend Carroll, of Cairo, to make Camilla his home, and there preach two Sunday’s a month. He also resumed teaching in Camilla with a school of some 70 students.

In Camilla, the Carroll’s social engagements included sponsoring the Camilla Literary Club which met in the parlor of their residence. Rev. Carroll’s school also put on an annual exhibition at Bennett Hall, and he was involved in organizing the Camilla lodge of the Knights of Honor. The Knights of Honor (K. of H.), a fraternal order and secret society in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century, was one of the most successful beneficiary societies of its time. The order was created in 1873 specifically to charter lodges idolizing Confederate leaders, which other fraternal organizations had refused to do.

A year later, the Camilla Baptist Church provided Rev. Carroll an annual salary of $900 to preach four Sunday’s a month. He, with Rev. Powell continued to teach at the Camilla Academy. Rev. Carroll tendered his resignation from the pastorate at Hickory Head Church and moved his family into the Hotel Georgia at Camilla, renting some six or seven rooms on the second floor. The newly opened Hotel Georgia was said to be elegantly furnished, constructed at a cost of $68,946.84. It was a three-story, 68 room affair, situated on Broad Street in Camilla, GA. The hotel’s rooms included a gentlemen’s Parlor, a drummer’s sample room, and a very large dining room with the table setting of silver-ware costing $1856.16. The hotel was under the management of Col. George G. Duy and his wife, with assistant manager Capt. C. R. Parrish. The kitchen was staffed with three cooks and equipped with a $1,200 range. The carpet on the parlor floor cost $3.15 per yard. Rev. Carroll continued to host the meetings of the Camilla Literary Club in his parlor at Hotel Georgia.

The Pittsburgh Ramie Manufacturing Company planned to erect a large factory at Thomasville, GA to process ramie plants into fiber.

On April 28, 1888, the Thomasville Times announced that Reverend Carroll had sold the ten acre tract in which he had invested three years earlier. The land was purchased by the Pittsburgh Ramie Manufacturing Company for the purpose of cultivating ramie. Ramie, or China Grass, is one of the oldest fiber crops, having been used for at least 6,000 years, and is principally used for fabric production. It was anticipated that ramie would become an important agricultural crop in the U.S., but the fiber found limited acceptance for textile use.

About the first of May, 1888, Rev. Carroll moved his family into houses owned by W. A. Hurst at Camilla, GA. Mr. Hurst moved into the Hotel Georgia. By October, the Carrolls moved into the new Baptist parsonage. Rev. Carroll’s preaching schedule changed to two Sundays a month at Camilla Baptist Church, and two Sundays a month at Flint and some other church.

In 1889 he took over preaching at Mount Enon Church, Cumming County, GA.

In 1890, Reverend E. B. Carroll was chosen as pastor of the First Baptist Church at Albany, GA. The Carrolls traveled by train to Albany. Arriving at the Albany depot on Tuesday February 18, 1890, the Carrolls were received by a large crowd. They occupied the residence of Mr. Gary Pittman. That year, Rev Carroll traveled to Jonesboro, GA to visit the Civil War battlefields where he had been a prisoner of war 25 years earlier, and where his brother died.

Rev. E.B. Carroll of Albany had a brother killed at the battle of Jonesboro in the “late unpleasantness,” and while there last week visited the old battle fields. The relic hunter has made but few invasions on this spot, and Mr. Carroll picked up an old musket barrel and bayonet, both marked by the ravages of the elements during the twenty-five years of peace, and will preserve them as relics of sacred memory.

♦

Rev. E. B. Carroll, of Albany, has found some interesting relics on the battlefield of Jonesboro. They consist of the barrel of a muzzle-loading musket that was pulled from the breastworks in a dilapidated condition, a bayonet, that has been placed on the muzzle of the barrel, and several bullets, battered by their contacts with objects on the field.

On April 26, 1890, he gave the invocation at the Albany, GA cemetery for the Confederate Memorial Day observation and fundraiser for a monument “to the sainted memory of the dead.”

“In 1874, the Georgia General Assembly [had] approved legislation adding as a new public holiday ‘The 26th day of April in each year – commonly known as Memorial Day.’ April 26 marks the anniversary of the end of the Civil War for Georgia, for it was on this day in 1865 that Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston’s surrender to General William T. Sherman at Durham Station, North Carolina became official. Johnston had been in charge of Georgia’s defense, so this day marked the end of the war for Georgia…The day of observance may trace to the women of Columbus, Georgia, who on April 12, 1866 organized a memorial association and began a campaign to have a special day for “’paying honor to those who died defending the life, honor and happiness of the Southern women.’”

Rev. E. B. Carroll’s brother, Dr. William J. Carroll, was pastor of the Baptist church at Milltown, GA.

Edwin B. Carroll

In May 1891, Rev. Carroll attended the Southern Baptist Convention in Birmingham, AL representing the Mallary Association. In October that year the Baptist Church of Dalton, GA sought his services, but he remained in Albany. He was a leading figure in fundraising for the construction of a new church building for Albany. The Albany News and Advertiser reported, “Rev. E.B. Carroll deserves especial commendation for the interest he takes in this affair and the indomitable energy with which he is pushing the work.” The building was completed in February, 1892.

Rev. Carroll gave the introductory sermon at the Georgia Baptist Convention which convened in LaGrange, GA in 1892. The delegate from Valdosta was Reverend P.H. Murray.

When the Columbian Exposition was about to open in 1892, Rev. Carroll led a petition drive opposing the opening of the Exposition gates on Sundays. Public funds for the Exposition had been appropriated by U.S. Congress on the condition that the Expo would be closed on Sundays, but the organizers and the Chicago Women’s Club were lobbying to have that condition removed.

Followers of Totten’s prophecies…

Charles Adiel Lewis Totten is listed in Who Was Who in America (1: 1247) as a professor of military science at Yale from 1889 to 1892, who resigned to spend more time on his religious studies. He was a British-Israelist, believing that the Anglo-Saxons were the lost tribes of Israel, and an Adventist, who predicted the reign of Antichrist would occur in the seven-year period from 1892 to 1899.

Rev. Carroll again represented the Mallary Association at the 1893 Southern Baptist Convention, met at Nashville, TN.

In 1894, Rev. Carroll accepted the pastorate of Vineville Baptist Church, Macon, GA, which had been founded in 1891 just a couple of miles from the campus of Mercer University.

In February 1895, a 10 acre parcel of land owned by Rev. Carroll on the Bainbridge Road in Thomas County was seized by the Superior Court and sold at auction to satisfy a debt he owed to Alice D. Tiller. On June 23, 1895, Rev. Carroll made a return visit to Camilla, GA where he gave the commencement sermon for the Camilla High School. That summer Mrs. E.B. Carroll was among the women of Macon who pledged to boycott stores that kept clerks working after 6:00 PM. The petition was published in the Macon Telegraph:

“Believing that for the sake of humanity that clerks who are on their feet all day should be allowed some recreation during the long summer days, and knowing that no merchant could possibly lose a cent if they will agree to close at 6 o’clock in the afternoon, we, the undersigned ladies, agree not to trade with any dry goods merchant who does not close his store at 6 o’clock p.m. (Saturdays excepted) from June 24 to September 1, 1895”

At the 1896 State Baptist Convention at Cedartown, GA, Rev. Carroll was elected to the Board of Trustees of Mercer University. From that membership, he was elected Chair of the Executive Committee of the Board. In October he issued the following:

The executive committee must have help or the young men who are in Mercer preparing for preaching the gospel must be told not to return after the Christmas holidays.
There are more than twenty of them receiving aid from the committee. Will not the churches send us money to keep these men here through the entire session?
The committee is greatly interested in this work, and indulges the hope that the brethren will respond to the call made.
Brother C.B. Willingham is treasurer of the committee, and he will be glad to receive your checks.

The Superior Court of Bibb County on December 14, 1896 appointed Rev. E.B. Carroll chair of a council of white church members of the First Baptist Church of Christ and the Vineville Baptist Church to supervise the election of a pastor at the African-American First Baptist Church, where a dispute had emerged among the congregation regarding the selection of a pastor.

The First Baptist Church on Cotton Avenue was established by African-Americans more than a quarter of a century before the adoption of the Emancipation Proclamation, which called for the freedom of all slaves on United States soil. Its origin was in the Baptist Church of Christ at Macon. For the first eight years, whites and African-Americans worshiped in the same building. Records indicate that at the time, there were two hundred eighty-three African-Americans and one hundred ninety-nine whites. In 1835, E.G. Cabiness, an early historian, wrote: “It’s thus seen that a majority of the church are slaves.” As members of the racially mixed church, the African-Americans were to a great extent, a distinct body. Alternate services were led under the direction of a licensed minister and deacons of their own color. Members exercised authority to receive and exclude persons as members of their church body. The ordinances, however, were administered by the pastor of the whole church. On March 1, 1845, land and building were deeded to the colored portion of the Baptist Church at Macon, “for religious services and moral cultivation forever.” -http://firstbaptistmacon.org/history.php

Through the Civil War the African-American First Baptist Church was under the pastorship of white ministers. Black congregations were required by law to have white ministers and supervision. The church’s first ordained African-American minister was not called until Reconstruction. In 1886, the church became a charter member of the National Baptist Convention. In this period, Black Baptists in the former Confederacy overwhelmingly left white-dominated churches to form independent congregations and get away from white supervision. Following the death of Reverend Tenant Mack Robinson in 1896, a disagreement among the deacons resulted in the church being closed by court action in November, 1896 and the appointment of Reverend Carroll to the supervising council.

In February, 1897 he made a visit to Griffin, GA, scene of his boyhood education and baptism:

The Macon Telegraph

February 16,1897
GRIFFIN.

A Macon Minister Preached to a Large Congregation Sunday.

Griffin, Feb 15. – Yesterday the pulpit of the First Baptist church here was filled by Rev. E. B. Carroll of the Vineville Baptist church, and a large and appreciative congregation gathered to hear him, and some who were unable to attend had their residence connected by telephone and listened to his discourse in the quiet of their homes. Mr. Carroll is not a stranger to Griffin, for it was here that he received a portion of his education and was converted and joined the Baptist church thirty-nine years ago, and, as a singular fact, he was the guest of the only man that was present in the congregation who had been a member as long, and that gentleman was Col. George I. Jones. Other singular coincidences connected with his visit are these: The first night here was spent under the first roof that ever sheltered him in Griffin in 1858, when he came to enter the school as a pupil at the old Marshall College. His Sunday was spent at the home of Mrs. R. C. Jones, whom he boarded with for two years and a half, and he found that not a death in the family in all those years. The organist of the Baptist church was Miss Nettie Sherwood, a niece of Rev. Adiel Sherwood, who was pastor of the church at the time that he joined, and also president of the Marshall College. Mr. Carroll’s visit here was the occasion of recalling many pleasant reminiscences of his school days, and the tenor of them seemed to mark the beginning of the future of the minister. Among those who he had known then he was simply the Ed Carroll of boyhood days, lovable and companionable; but to the younger generation that listened to the after-dinner talk, he was the grand man that he is – a worthy minister to the court of heaven.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Convention. In April 1897, the Baptist and Reflector shared the amusing anecdote.

Edwin B. Carroll catches train in Macon, GA, April 29, 1897 Baptist and Reflector

In May 1897 he was a Georgia delegate at the Southern Baptist Convention at Wilmington, NC. And in 1898 he attended the convention at Norfolk, VA.

He was a delegate in attendance at the 1899 Southern Baptist Convention in Louisville, KY. In September 1901, he accepted a call to preach at the Baptist Church at Carrollton, GA.

In 1903 Rev. Carroll served on the Nominations Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, convened at Savannah, GA. The pastor of the Ray City Baptist Church, Reverend H.C. Strong, was among the delegates. Other delegates from the area included: E. L. Thomas, J.T. Fender, attorney Elisha Peck Smith Denmark, planter John Lane, Robert T. Myddleton, Reverend Luther Rice Christie and William Carey Willis, Valdosta; B.F. Elliott, Adel; Reverend Charles Gaulden Dilworth, Tifton. On May 24, 1903 he preached the commencement sermon at Norman Institute, Norman Park, GA. While there he made a visit to Berrien county, his old home. In July he returned to hold services in some of the old churches he had served in this section.

On Sunday, April 10, 1904 memorial services were held at his old church at Hickory Head, GA with his widow in attendance.

1 Comment

Captain J. D. Evans was Skulking and Hiding Out

August 8, 2020 at 4:50 am (Baptists, Civil War, Faith and Begorrah, Uncategorized)
Tags: 54th Georgia Volunteer Infantry, Battery Wagner, Battle of Chickamauga, Berrien Light Infantry, Charlton H. Way, Company E 54th Georgia Volunteer Infantry, Company I 50th Georgia Regiment, Confederate skulkers, Elijah C. Morgan, J.D. Evans, James Island SC, Jefferson Davis, Judah P. Benjamin, Morris Island SC, N. M. McNabb, Samuel Cooper, Seaborn Lastinger, Valdosta GA, William J. Young, William Lastinger, William Washington Williams

Desertion of J. D. Evans

Johnathan D. Evans before the Civil War was residing at Nashville, GA. He was enumerated there as a mechanic in the Census of 1860. A “mechanic” was a craftsman, tradesman or artisan – a skilled worker in manufacturing, production or entrepreneurial trade. Mechanics worked as independent masters or journeymen in manufacturing and trade establishments, railroads, mills, foundries, potteries, bakehouses, tanneries, currieries, coach makers, saddlers, blacksmiths, soap and candle makers, construction, shoe making, boat manufacture, book binding, watchmaking, and so on. The 1860 Census Schedule 2, “Slave Inhabitants” shows Evans was a “slave owner” enumerated with two enslaved people.

At the outbreak of the war, J. D. Evans became Captain of one of the four companies of Confederate soldiers that went forth from Berrien County, GA. His name appears on a March 1862 list of Berrien County men subject to do military duty. He enlisted with other men of Berrien County and was mustered into Company E, 54th Georgia Regiment Volunteer Infantry March 4, 1862. On May 6, 1862, J. D. Evans was elected Captain of Company E. Among other Berrien County men serving in Company E, 54th Georgia Regiment were Jehu and James Patten, George Washington Knight , Matthew Hodge Albritton, James Lee, Jesse Lee, John Lee, George Washington Knight, James Madison Baskin, William Varnell Nix, Stephen Willis Avera, William J. Lamb, Thomas L. Lamb, Samuel Guthrie, William Henry Outlaw, John Webb, Jordan Webb and Benjamin Sirmans, Jeremiah May, Rufus Ray, and Samuel Sanders. Dr. Hamilton M. Talley was Evans’ second in command.

But after a year of service, J. D. Evans deserted his post.

According to the New Georgia Encylopedia,

“Desertion plagued Georgia regiments during the Civil War (1861-65) and, in addition to other factors, debilitated the Confederate war effort. Deserters were not merely cowards or ne’er-do-wells; some were seasoned veterans from battle-hardened regiments…. Whereas the sixty-three plantation-belt counties in the lowlands provided more than 50 percent of the volunteer infantry companies, desertion rates among soldiers hailing from this region were among the lowest in the state…This phenomenon may be partially accounted for by the fact that Confederate social and military authority remained reasonably intact in the lowlands for most of the war, making it perilous for would-be deserters from the area to flee home…The economic structure of the plantation belt and the widespread use of slave labor also allowed lowland Georgians to remain in the Confederate army without worries for the safety of their homes and families. [Furthermore] wealthy plantation owners in the lowlands were able to apply for exemptions. While 3,368 Georgians deserted to Union lines throughout the war, approximately 11,000 affluent Georgia men received exemptions and were able to remain in their communities and maintain social and economic stability.

Berrien County men, like J. D. Evans, did desert, though. Men deserted from Company E (Berrien County), 54th GA Regiment, from the Berrien Minute Men (companies G & K, 29th GA regiment), and from the Berrien Light Infantry (Company I, 50th GA Regiment).

Companies routinely sent patrols back to their home counties to round up deserters and stragglers who had overstayed their leaves. Sergeant William W. Williams was sent in 1864 to hunt skulkers in Lowndes and Berrien County, GA. N. M. McNabb, a soldier of Company D, 12th Georgia Regiment, was pressed into service hunting fugitive deserters in Berrien County in September 1864.

Men who were too old for active service would be formed into details to find deserters and send them back to the Army. Punishment varied widely, but men who deserted, especially multiple offenders, might be executed by firing squad. Nebraska Eadie, who experienced the Civil War as a child in Berrien County, GA, recalled how her uncle Seaborn Lastinger was executed for desertion:

“Uncle Seaborn was shot at sunrise. He was blindfolded standing on his knees by a large pine tree. My father [William Lastinger] took it hard, and recorded it in his record this way: (Shot by those Damned called Details).“

It was not unusual for Confederate soldiers to go absent without having been granted leave. John W. Hagan, sergeant of the Berrien Minute Men, wrote about having to “run the blockade” – to slip past sentries and sneak out of camp for a few hours when he didn’t have a pass. Isaac Gordon Bradwell, a soldier of the 31st Georgia Regiment, wrote from Camp Wilson about his regiment being called to formation in the middle of the night to catch out those men who were absent without leave. The men returned before dawn, but “There was quite a delegation from each company to march up to headquarters that morning to receive, as they thought, a very severe penalty for their misconduct. Our good old colonel stood up before his tent and lectured the men, while others stood armed grinning and laughing at their plight; but to the surprise and joy of the guilty, he dismissed them all without punishment after they had promised him never to run away from camp again.”

The men sometimes gave themselves unofficial leave for more than just a night on the town – French leave, they called it.

Desertion was common from the beginning of the war, but, until early in 1862, it was not always defined as such. When the war unexpectedly lasted past the first summer and fall, … recruits began taking what many called “French leave” by absenting themselves for a few days or longer in order to visit friends and family (the term comes from an eighteenth-century French custom of leaving a reception without saying a formal good bye to the host or hostess). Officers pursued these men with varying degrees of diligence, but because most returned in time for the spring campaigns, few were formally charged with and punished for desertion. – Encyclopedia Virginia

In July 1862 a number of men from the 29th Georgia Regiment were detached to Camp Anderson, near Savannah, for the formation of a new sharpshooter battalion. Desertion became a problem; by the end of the year 29 men would desert from Camp Anderson. At least one deserter killed himself rather than be captured and returned to Camp Anderson. Another, after firing a shot at Major Anderson, was court-martialed and executed by firing squad. Three more deserters were sentenced to death but were released and returned to duty under a general amnesty and pardon issued by Jefferson Davis.

In October 1862 Elbert J. “Yaller” Chapman took “French leave” when the Berrien Minute Men were returning by train from a deployment in Florida:

“Yaller” stepped off the train at the station on the Savannah, Florida, and Western [Atlantic & Gulf] railroad nearest his home — probably Naylor, and went to see his family. He was reported “absent without leave,” and when he returned to his command at Savannah, he was placed in the guard tent and charges were preferred against him. It was from the guard tent that he deserted and went home the second time. After staying home a short while he joined a cavalry command and went west. It is said that he was in several engagements and fought bravely.

Albert Douglas left the Berrien Minute Men “absent without leave” in December 1862 and was marked “deserted.” Actually Douglas enlisted in the 26th Georgia Infantry and went to Virginia, where his unit was engaged in the Battle of Brawners Farm. He subsequently served in a number of units before deserting and surrendering to the U. S. Army. He was inducted into the U. S. Navy, but deserted that position in March 1865.

By the spring of 1863 when the 29th Georgia Regiment was stationed at Camp Young near Savannah, GA, twenty men were reported as deserters. Four of the deserters were from Company K, the Berrien Minute Men, including Albert Douglas, Benjamin S. Garrett, J. P. Ponder and Elbert J. Chapman. Colonel William J. Young offered a reward of $30 for each Confederate deserter apprehended, $600 for the bunch. From the weeks and months the reward was advertised, one can judge these were not men who just sneaked off to Savannah, but were long gone.

Deserter Benjamin S. Garrett was said to have been shot for being a spy. Back in 1856, Benjamin Garrett had been charged in old Lowndes County, GA with drunk and disorderly “public rioting,” along with his brothers Drew and William Garrett, and their cousins John Gaskins, William Gaskins, Gideon Gaskins and Samuel Gaskins; the venue was later changed to the Court of the newly formed Berrien County, but never went to trial.

In April, 1863 deserters from the Confederate works at Causton’s Bluff and Thunderbolt batteries reported that “the daily rations of troops consist only of four ounces bacon and seven of cornmeal.”

When the 29th Georgia Regiment and the Berrien Minute Men, Company K were sent to Mississippi in May of 1863 they encountered deserter Elbert J. Chapman serving in another regiment. The case became one of the most notorious of the war. [Chapman’s] desertion consisted in his leaving [the Berrien Minute Men,] Wilson’s Infantry Regiment, then stationed on the coast of Georgia, and joining a Cavalry Regiment at the front—a “desertion” of a soldier from inactive service in the rear to fighting at the front. Although Chapman was fighting with another company in Mississippi, he was charged with desertion from the 29th Georgia Regiment and court-martialed. Despite appeals by his commanding officers Chapman was executed by firing squad. After the war, his indigent wife was denied a Confederate pension.

While Berrien Minute Men Company G was detached at the Savannah River Batteries, the papers of commanding officer Col. Edward C. Anderson indicate desertions from the Savannah defenses were a common occurrence.

It was in July 1863 that Captain J. D. Evans deserted from Company E, 54th Georgia Infantry Regiment. Given that the 54th Georgia Infantry was engaged in repelling Federal assaults on the defenses of Charleston, his punishment was remarkably light.

Just a few days after J. D. Evans went absent without leave, Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America, issued a general pardon to deserters.

Jefferson Davis

His proclamation, issued on August 1, 1863, admitted Confederate defeats, the horrific death toll, and the pending invasion of Georgia by overwhelming U.S. forces. Davis claimed the goal of the U.S. government is a slave revolt and the genocide or enslavement of Southern whites. He assuaged the guilt of deserters and asserted that Confederate victory could still be pulled from defeat, if all the Confederate deserters would but return to their camps. Finally, Davis “conjures” the women of Georgia not to shelter deserters from disgrace.

Jefferson Davis’ proclamation of pardon and amnesty for Confederate deserters was published in newspapers all over the South.

TO THE SOLDIERS OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES.
After more than two years of a warfare scarcely equaled in the number, magnitude and fearful carnage of its battles; a warfare in which your courage and fortitude have illustrated your country and attracted not only gratitude at home but admiration abroad, your enemies continue a struggle in which our final triumph must be inevitable. Unduly elated with their recent successes they imagine that temporary reverses can quell your spirit or shake your determination, and they are now gathering heavy masses for a general invasion, in the vain hope that by a desperate effort success may at length be reached.
You know too well, my countrymen, what they mean by success. Their malignant rage aims at nothing less than the extermination of yourselves, your wives and children. They seek to destroy what they cannot plunder. They propose as the spoils of victory that your homes shall be partitioned among the wretches whose atrocious cruelties have stamped infamy on their Government. The design to incite servile insurrection and light the fires of incendiarism whenever they can reach your homes, and they debauch the inferior race hitherto docile and contented, by promising indulgence of the vilest passions, as the price of treachery. Conscious of their inability to prevail by legitimate warfare, not daring to make peace lest they should be hurled from their seats of power, the men who now rule in Washington refuse even to confer on the subject of putting an end to outrages which disgrace our age, or to listen to a suggestion for conducting the war according to the usages of civilization. Fellow citizens, no alternative is left you but victory, or subjugation, slavery and the utter ruin of yourselves, your families and your country. The victory is within your reach. You need but stretch forth your hands to grasp it. For this and all that is necessary is that those who are called to the field by every motive that can move the human heart, should promptly repair to the post of duty, should stand by their comrades now in front of the foe, and thus so strengthen the armies of the Confederacy as to ensure success. The men now absent from their posts would, if present in the field, suffice to create numerical equality between our force and that of the invaders— and when, with any approach to such equality, have we failed to be victorious? I believe that but few of those absent are actuated by unwillingness to serve their country; but that many have found it difficult to resist the temptation of a visit to their homes and the loved ones from whom they have been so long separated; that others have left for temporary attention to their affairs with the intention of returning and then have shrunk from the consequences of their violation of duty; that others again have left their post from mere restlessness and desire of change, each quieting the upbraidings of his conscience, by persuading himself that his individual services could have no influence on the general result.
These and other causes (although far less disgraceful than the desire to avoid danger, or to escape from the sacrifices required by patriotism, are, nevertheless, grievous faults, and place the cause of our beloved country, and of everything we hold dear, in imminent peril. I repeat that the men who now owe duty to their country, who have been called out and have not yet reported for duty, or who have absented themselves from their posts, are sufficient in number to secure us victory in the struggle now pending.
I call on you, then, my countrymen, to hasten to your camps, in obedience to the dictates of honor and of duty, and summon, those who have absented themselves without leave, or who have remained absent beyond the period allowed by their furloughs, to repair without delay to their respective commands, and I do hereby declare that I grant a general pardon and amnesty to all officers and men within the Confederacy, now absent without leave, who shall, with the least possible delay, return to their proper posts of duty, but no excuse will be received for any deserter beyond twenty days after the first publication of this proclamation in the State in which the absentee may be at the date of the publication. This amnesty and pardon shall extend to all who have been accused, or who have been convicted and are undergoing sentence for absence without leave or desertion, excepting only those who have been twice convicted of desertion.
Finally, I conjure my countrywomen —the wives, mothers, sisters and daughters of the Confederacy— to use their all-powerful influence in aid of this call, to add one crowning sacrifice to those which their patriotism has so freely and constantly offered on their country’s alter, and to take care that none who owe service in the field shall be sheltered at home from the disgrace of having deserted their duty to their families, to their country, and to their God.
Given under my hand, and the Seal of the Confederate States, at Richmond, this 1st day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three.

JEFFERSON DAVIS.
By the President:
J. P. Benjamin, Sec’ry of State.

Johnathan D. Evans did not return to his post, however. In his absence, the 54th Georgia Regiment continued on station. The Georgia Journal and Messenger reported “the 54th Georgia Regiment suffered severely” on the night of August 25 when federal forces assaulted Battery Wagner on Morris Island.

On Oct 23, 1863, Evans’ Colonel wrote to General Samuel Cooper that Evans was a skulker and hiding from duty. (Cooper was the highest ranking officer of the Confederate States Army, outranking Robert E. Lee and all other officers of the Confederacy.)

Hed. Qrs. 54th Ga. Infantry
James Island, S.C.
Oct. 20th, 1863

Gen’l S. Cooper
Adj’t Insp’r Gen’l
Richmond,

Gen’l
I have the honor to request that you will drop in disgrace from the Army rolls, the name of Captain J. D. Evans of Company “E” 54th Ga. Infantry.
This officer has been absent from his command for a period of sixty days without leave. On the 27th day of July last, the Regiment being ordered to Morris Island, Capt Evans reported sick, and at his own request was sent, by the Surgeon, to the hospital in Charleston. He was subsequently transferred to Columbus, S.C., and thence to Augusta, Ga., since which time he has never reported.
I regret to state that all the circumstances surrounding this case indicate, but too clearly, that he never intends to rejoin his command – at least while it is in active service; (nor from all the reports which reach me) can I be induced to believe that he is sick – on the contrary, I am forced unwillingly to think that he is skulking and hiding from duty. If a more charitable construction could be placed upon his conduct, I should be the last one to suggest so harsh a proceeding in his case.
Where he is – what he is doing – when he intends to return – and where to reach him with an order are questions which no one can answer.
Verbal reports reach me that he is at home with his family – that he is engaged in a Government workshop – but all parties report him well. His influence with his command is lost. For the good of the service, and as a proper example to deter others from adopting a similar course, I earnestly recommend that his name be dropped from the Army Rolls.

I have the honor to be, Gen’l,
Very Respectfully,
Yr Ob’t Sv’t
Charlton H. Way

Col. Charlton H. Way letter of October 10, 1863 requesting Capt. J. D. Evans be dropped in disgrace from Army rolls.

Evans never did return to his unit. He was dropped from the rolls of Confederate officers for desertion.

The most significant wave of desertion among Georgia soldiers began in late 1863 following the Battle of Chickamauga,…the biggest battle ever fought in Georgia, which took place on September 18-20, 1863. With 34,000 casualties, Chickamauga is generally accepted as the second bloodiest engagement of the war; only the Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, with 51,000 casualties, was deadlier.

Lt. H. M. Talley assumed command of Company E, 54th GA Regiment. By the spring of 1864, Company E and the rest of the 54th Georgia Regiment were back at Savannah, GA serving on river defenses under the command of Edward C. Anderson. Anderson’s command also included the Berrien Minute Men, Company G, 29th Georgia Regiment. Col. E. C. Anderson’s frustrations with Confederate desertion included the embarrassment of having his personal boat stolen by three deserters from the Confederate tugboat CSS Resolute on the night of April 15, 1864.

By the summer of 1864, the Confederate States Army was again in pursuit of skulkers. Colonel Elijah C. Morgan of the Georgia Militia, wrote from Valdosta, GA to his superior officer requesting a guard to conduct skulkers back to their units. Col. E. C. Morgan had served as Captain of the Berrien Light Infantry, Company I, 50th GA regiment from the formation of the company in 1862 until April 14, 1863 when he resigned because of tuberculosis; before the war he had been a Berrien County, GA attorney.

Colonel Elijah C. Morgan requests a guard to conduct skulkers from Valdosta, GA back to their Confederate units, August 16, 1864.

Valdosta, Ga Aug 16th 1864

General,

I again urge the necessity of sending Sergt Wm W Williams back to use as a guard in sending forward skulkers who will not do to trust without a guard.

E. C. Morgan
Col. & ADG
6th Dist GM

According to historian Ella Lonn, of the approximately 103,400 enlisted men who deserted the Confederacy by war’s end, 6,797 were from Georgia.

After the war, J. D. Evans became a Baptist preacher. In 1874 he came to Ray’s Mill, GA (now Ray City) where he was instrumental in organizing a missionary Baptist Church.

Leave a Comment

Reverend Carl Winn Minor

July 22, 2020 at 12:58 am (Baptists, Faith and Begorrah)
Tags: Andrew Jefferson Beck, Carl Winn Minor, club axe, Cox College, Cox Female College, Dublin Baptist Church, First Baptist Church of Valdosta, Francis Minor, Frank Minor, Friendship Church, Georgia Baptist Orphans' Home, Jim Minor, Martha Elizabeth Fair, Mary Jane Watson, Mercer University, Middle Georgia Military and Agricultural College, Ray City Baptist Church, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Thomas Joseph Holmes, Valdosta Baptist Church, W. J. Durham, William D. Dewell

Reverend Carl Winn Minor (1868-1940)

Carl Winn Minor was pastor of the Ray City Baptist Church in 1936 and 1937. Born during Reconstruction, C. W. Minor was a son of Francis Minor and Mary Jane Watson and a grandson of Jim Minor, of Virginia.

Carl Winn Minor served as pastor of Ray City Baptist Church in 1936 and 1937. Rev. Minor had formerly served as pastor of Valdosta Baptist Church.

According to Baptist Biography, Vol II, 1917:

In the early part of the last century, Mr. Jim Minor moved from Virginia to Georgia and settled on a farm in the southern part of Hancock County. Among his children was Francis [Frank] Minor, who was made an orphan by the death of his father when he was only six years old. In the early years of Francis the responsibilities of the family fell upon his shoulders. This and the consequent hardships developed the manhood that was in him and he became a successful farmer. At the age of thirty he married Miss Mary Jane Watson, a native of Greene County, Georgia. They lived and labored on a farm in Hancock County, where they reared a large family, Carl Winn Minor, the subject of this sketch being the eleventh of fifteen children.

Mr. Minor was born July 29, 1868, and spent his youth on his father’s plantation, where he was schooled in the art of tilling the soil. By the use of a club axe, the plow and the hoe, he developed a strong body which has served him well in his educational pursuits and in his ministerial career. In the community school, with its short terms, he laid the foundation for his education. Being a diligent student and apt to learn he developed an insatiable desire for knowledge. In early manhood he entered the [Middle Georgia Military & Agricultural College] M. G. M. & A. College, at Milledgeville, Georgia, in which he prepared himself for the Freshman class of Mercer University, Macon, Georgia.

Carl Winn Minor attended Middle Georgia Military & Agricultural College at Milledgeville, GA. The college was housed in the former state capitol building, constructed in 1803. The college is now known as Georgia Military College.

On June 25, 1885, a month and three days before his seventeenth birthday. Mr. Minor was happily converted and united with the Milledgeville Baptist church and was baptized by Rev. A. J. Beck [Reverend Andrew Jefferson Beck]. From the beginning of his Christian life Mr. Minor took an active interest in the work of his church. It was soon recognized that he was a convert of promise and that he was endowed with the gifts of public speech and of leadership. Accordingly, he was licensed to exercise his gifts in preaching the gospel, and on December 18, 1888, while a student at Mercer University, he was ordained to the full work of the gospel ministry by Friendship church, Washington county, Georgia. The presbytery was composed of Revs. T. J. Holmes [Thomas Joseph Holmes], W. J. Durham and D. W. Dewell [William D. Dewell].

Carl Winn Minor attended Mercer University

Carl W. Winn was pastor at Union Baptist Church, Warthen, Washington County, GA from 1889 to 1893, while attending Mercer University.

Mr. Minor was pastor of one or more churches during his entire course at Mercer University. The churches served while at Mercer were Liberty, Wilkinson County, 1888-1893, and Union, Washington county, 1889-1893. The A. B. course and the duties of preparing sermons and of pastoral work in his churches were a heavy tax on his mind and body, but being accustomed to hard work from his youth up, and possessing an unusual degree of determination, he succeeded in the work of his churches and made a good record in his college classes, graduating with the A. B. degree in 1893. The income from the churches he served was not adequate to meet his college expenses, and it was necessary for him to devote one year to teaching. That year was spent in the grammar school of South Macon.

Old Baptist Church Building, Dublin, GA. Carl Winn Minor taught at this church while attending Mercer University in the 1890s.

During Mr. Minor’s last year at Mercer he was pastor of the Dublin Baptist church. This church offered exceptional opportunities for a young college graduate, but he was not satisfied with his educational attainments. Accordingly, he resigned the pastorate of the Dublin church in the Fall of 1893 and entered the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, at Louisville, Kentucky, from which he graduated with the Th. G. degree in 1895. While at the Seminary he was pastor of Tate’s Creek and Elko churches, in Kentucky.

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, KY

After graduation from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Mr. Minor became pastor of the Valdosta Baptist church, Georgia,

Carl Winn Minor preached from 1895 to 1900 in this Valdosta, GA church building, originally constructed in 1867 by the missionary baptist congregation of Valdosta. The Missionary Baptists sold the building to the Valdosta Primitive Baptist congregation in 1900. It was acquired by the Pentacostal Church 1994. It is Valdosta’s oldest existing religious structure.

[Reverend Minor served Valdosta Baptist Church] from 1895 to 1902. During this period the city of Valdosta had a very rapid but substantial growth. The church of which Mr. Minor was pastor kept pace with the material development of the community. Through his leadership it erected a magnificent new house of worship, which cost $30,000.

————————♦————————

In 1896, a lot on Toombs Street between West Central Avenue and Valley Street was purchased and construction on a new church building began. After four years, on November 18, 1900, the church was dedicated debt free, to the glory of God.

Valdosta Baptist Church

————————♦————————

During [Reverend Minor’s] pastorate at Valdosta he spent a year in travel and study abroad.

1899 Passport application of Carl Winn Minor.

Three months of the time were spent in the Holy Land. It was his privilege to read the thrilling instances recorded in the Scriptures on the ground where they took place. These opportunities gave him a clearer insight into the realities of the divine revelation. It has had a telling effect on his preaching through all the years. While abroad he spent much time in Germany, France, England and Scotland.

Mr. Minor has held only five pastorates since his graduation from the Seminary in 1895. The unanimous call of the church at Fitzgerald and the exceptional opportunities the field offered, led Mr. Minor to resign his church at Valdosta, in 1902, and to accept the pastorate of the church at Fitzgerald, where he remained through 1905. The church at Moultrie extended him a call in the latter part of 1905. It was an inviting field and the call was accepted and he gave the church three years of faithful and efficient service, resigning its pastorate to accept a call to the church at Bainbridge, where he did a great work during the years 1909 to 1914. Up until 1914 all the pastoral work of Mr. Minor had been in the territory south of Macon. The church at Madison, Georgia, coveted his gifts and secured his services in 1914 and thereafter until 1917. During his pastorate at Madison a commodious Sunday school room was erected at a cost of $25,000.

It may be said that few pastors anywhere have been more successful and more universally popular than Mr. Minor. Good congregations attended the regular services of all the churches he has served, and the churches under his leadership have enjoyed steady and substantial growth in numbers and in Christian liberality. His work as a pastor has been constructive, and every field in which he has labored has been made more desirable for his successor by reason of the character of work he did while in it.

The interest of Mr. Minor has not been limited to the churches he has served nor to the communities in which they were located. The district association of which his churches were members had his active support, and he ever maintained an active interest in the State and Southern Baptist Conventions. Educational institutions have found in him a staunch friend, and he has rendered much valuable service in their interests. Mr. Minor is distinctively a denominational man, and his denomination has recognized his ability as a leader in the interest of its enterprises. Among other positions held, he is trustee of the Georgia Baptist Orphans’ Home, Mercer University, and is president of the Mission Board of the Georgia Baptist Convention, a position which he has held during the past three years. In recognition of his ability as a minister of the gospel and as a theologian, the trustees of Mercer University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity in 1910.

Dr. Minor is a man of pleasing personal appearance. Friends are easily made, and seemingly quite as easily held. As a preacher he is clear in his thinking, sound in his theology and forceful in his delivery. In his public addresses, he warms up to his subject quickly and creates interest and enthusiasm in his hearers. As a citizen he is every whit a Christian gentleman. Honesty and integrity with him are priceless virtues. In all the communities where he has lived and labored, he has maintained a high standing as a Christian citizen and as a man of good business judgment.

It was a surprise to many of his friends that Dr. Minor could have been induced to leave the pastorate to become associate president of Cox College, where he began his labors in the Fall of 1917.

Cox Female College, Atlanta, GA. Carl Winn Minor was president of the college from 1917 to 1926.

In the college, as in the pastorate, he is a tireless and tactful worker. Wherever he has gone he has made friends for the institution over which he presides. Though the college has no organic connection with the Baptist denomination, it is recognized as a Baptist institution. Dr. Minor’s friendship and support of the institutions of the Georgia Baptist Convention have been as hearty since his connection with Cox College as they were before.

Dr. Minor greatly increased his personal happiness and usefulness in his marriage to Mrs. Bessie Fair Sims, on September 17, 1912. In his work as pastor and as president of Cox College, she is a worthy helpmeet. With his home established and with his breadth of learning and with his varied experiences as pastor, educator and denominational worker, he is now at his best. The hard work on the farm in his youth, his struggles in securing an education, the stress and strain of growing pastorates and the exactions of a college president have in no way impaired his physical strength. At no time in his busy life has he been more capable of doing well a diversity of things than now. The brotherhood of his denomination and the people of the communities in which he has lived and labored trust him implicitly and delight to honor him. The days of his greatest usefulness have just begun, and the rewards which he has received and those which await him are well worth all the struggles of his youth and the sacrifices and labors of his manhood.

————————♦————————

Subsequent to his tenure at Cox College, Carl Winn Minor served as pastor of a number of Georgia baptist churches. In 1930, he was living and preaching in Augusta, GA. By 1936, he came to Ray City, GA where he served as pastor of the Ray City Baptist Church for two years. At the conclusion of his pastorate in Ray City, Carl Winn Minor was 66 years of age. On June 10,1940 he died of a heart attack in Atlanta, GA. He was buried at Memory Hill Cemetery, Milledgeville GA. Bessie Minor died in 1961 and was buried at her husband’s side.

Leave a Comment

A Brief History of Beaver Dam Baptist Church

June 27, 2020 at 12:26 am (Baptists, Faith and Begorrah)
Tags: Beaver Dam Baptist Church, Beaver Dam Baptist Church - Ray City GA, Clayton Samuel Yawn, David J. McGee, J.D. Evans, Jonathan D. Evans, Mary Ray, Mercer Baptist Association, Morven GA, Perry Thomas Knight, Philadelphia Church, Ray City Baptist Church, Ray's Mill GA, Thomas M. Ray, William A. Bridges

In 1874 when Mercer Association missionary Reverend J. D. Evans came to Ray’s Mill, Thomas M. Ray was deeply moved by the Baptist’s message. Evans and Ray were both Confederate veterans and US Census records prior to the Civil War enumerated them as “slave owners”.

During the Civil War, Evans had been Captain of the Berrien Light Infantry until he deserted in the summer of 1863. After the war Evans took up the gospel as a layman. In 1871 he organized a Sunday School at a log house near Morven, GA and was a founding member of Philadelphia Church there. Shortly afterwards he was ordained by Philadelphia Church and took up missionary work helping to found a number of Wiregrass Baptist churches. In 1874 this work brought him to Ray’s Mill.

At first the Missionary Baptist church meetings were held in the old log schoolhouse and big revivals that were held at Ray’s Mill in May and July 1874. Thomas M. Ray must have attended the events for he became instrumental in the formation of a Baptist Church at Ray’s Mill (see Men at Beaver Dam Baptist Church.) On September 20, 1874, a small group of followers met with Reverend J. D. Evans at the home of Thomas and Mary Ray to organize the church. Thomas M. Ray and David J. McGee were elected to represent the new church to the Mercer Baptist Association and were sent as messengers to the Valdosta Church. The Reverend J. D. Evans wrote a petitionary letter which they carried to the association. In November 1874 Thomas M. Ray was appointed to a church building committee along with James M. Baskin and David J. McGee. Ray served on the committed that selected and procured the site for the construction of the church building; He continued to serve on the building committee until his death.

The original wooden church building at Beaver Dam was constructed by William A. Bridges and James M. Baskin (see Baskin Family Helped Found Ray City Baptist Church). Construction began in January of 1875. Baskin and Bridges hand hewed the timbers to frame the church. Sawn lumber was purchased but had to be dressed by hand. The building was finished with windows and siding. The pulpit, table and pews were all built on site. J. M. Baskin made the doors himself.

Pastors of Ray City Baptist Church

John D. Evans 1874-1875
William E. Morris 1875-1876
George M. Troupe Wilson 1876-1876
John D. Evans 1876-1878
T. W. Powell 1878-1880
William Adolphus Pardee 1884-1887
John D. Evans 1887-1889
William Henry Dent 1890-1898
Malcolm Augustus Grace 1898-1900
J. L. Milner 1900-1901
H. C. Strong 1901-1903
W. J. Odom 1903-1903
W. J. Ballew 1903-1903
A. J. Gross 1905-1906
E. L. Todd 1906-1913
Perry Thomas Knight 1913-1917
M. L. Lawson 1917-1917
N. C. Wilkes 1917-1918
Clayton Samuel Yawn 1918-1921
W. Harvey Wages 1921-1922
J. C. Moore 1924—1925
A. W. Smith 1925-1925
Walter Branch 1925-1935
Carl W. Minor 1936-1937
C. Schwall 1937-1940
John W. Harrell 1941-1945
P. T. Peavy 1945-1945
John W. Harrell 1946-1953
Claude Tuten 1954-1958
C. C. Lynch 1959-1962
J. Ray Allen 1962-1963
Bob M. Brown 1964-1967
Allen Bates 1967-1972
Wiley Vickers 1973-1977
Dr. William Rathburn 1978-1990
Lee Graham 1990-2006
John E. Patten 2006 –

Men at Beaver Dam Baptist Church

Baskin Family Helped Found Ray City Baptist Church

Pearl Todd Baptist Retreat

Wilmont Pierce and the Valdosta Baptist Association

Perry Thomas Knight Attended Oaklawn Baptist Academy

Mixon Graves at New Bethel Baptist Church Cemetery

Owen Clinton Pope, Reconstruction Teaching and Preaching

Spanish-American War Vet Rests at Ray City, GA

Mary & Saunto Sollami Buried at Beaver Dam Cemetery

Leave a Comment

George W. Davis ~ Methodist Circuit Rider

December 4, 2019 at 12:52 am (Faith and Begorrah, Wiregrass Methodists)
Tags: Appling County Mission, Georgia Methodists, Joseph McBride, Libery County Mission, Lowndes Mission, Methodist circuit-riders, Monticello FL, Robert Hudson Howren

George W. Davis was an early circuit riding Methodist preacher in Lowndes County, GA. He was sent from the Tallahassee District in 1832 to ride the newly created Lowndes (later Troupville) Circuit. This was when Lowndes County encompassed a vast area of south Georgia including much of present-day Lowndes, Berrien, Brooks, Cook, Tift, Echols, and Lanier counties, and the county seat of government was at Franklinville, GA.

Methodist Circuit Rider in the early days. The history of Georgia Methodism from 1786 to 1866.

The privations of the early circuit-riders (as they soon became known) were such that the health of most of these vanguards of the Cross was soon broken. Subjected to bitter cold and at other times to unbearable heat, oftentimes with the ground as a bed at night, fording impassable streams, long distances between settlers and between preaching points, no roads, no bridges, no churches (and even when some were formed they were too weak to afford any financial help to the pastor), with many natural enemies in addition to the lurking Indian, long absences from home and kindred, with the heavy spiritual care of a struggling mission work upon their shoulders, it was no wonder that many of the early pioneer preachers died in the prime of life, while others had to take enforced “locations” on account of broken health. It was thus that the first young preacher sent out on the newly established Lowndes Mission in 1832, died at the age of 24 years.

The loss of Rev. Davis weighed in the reflections of Rev. Robert H. Howren, who would soon follow in this young circuit-rider’s footsteps round the Methodist churches of Lowndes County. In his memoirs Howren said:

Rev. George W. Davis, the first pastor of the Lowndes Mission, was born in Morgan County, Ga., in 1808, and was converted in 1824 in a camp-meeting near Monticello, Jasper County, [FL]. In 1828 he felt a call to preach and was admitted on trial into the Georgia Conference, later into the full connection. He was assigned to the traveling ministry in which he continued with great fortitude and faithfulness despite hardships and trials, until his death. His first work in South Georgia was in 1830 when he served as Junior Preacher on the Liberty County Mission, Savannah District. The next year he was assigned to the Appling County Mission, a truly pioneer work. In January, 1832, he was assigned to the newly formed Lowndes Mission but did not live to wind up the year, dying suddenly within two minutes on November 17, 1832 at the home of Joseph McBride in Florida. (From Conference Obituary).

†

Though his death was sudden, the righteousness of his life gives assurance that he died in the Lord. Being seated at the table in company with some of his brethren at the house of brother Joseph McBride, in Florida, he suddenly sunk down and expired in about two minutes, November 27, 1832, in the twenty-fourth year of his age. -Minutes of the Annual Conferences of the United Methodist Church, 1840

1 Comment

W. E. Hightower, Methodist Minister

November 16, 2019 at 1:05 am (Uncategorized, Wiregrass Methodists)
Tags: Aldora Hightower, Butler GA, Frances Elizabeth Hightower, Hillard Jones Hightower, Ray City Masonic Hall, Ray City Methodist Church, Remerton GA, W.E. Hightower, Will Clements, William Edward Hightower

William Edward Hightower

The Reverend W.E. Hightower of Remerton, Georgia served as the first pastor of the Ray City Methodist Church. He served at Ray City during 1910-1911. According to the history of the Ray City Methodist church, there was no church building in the town during his appointment. Originally the services were held in a tent on the north side of town near the homestead of Mr. and Mrs. Will Clements. Among the first members were Mr. and Mrs. W.F. Luckie, Will Terry, Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Turner, Mrs. Julia Dudley, Annie Lee Dudley, and Marie Dudley. Later Reverend Hightower held church services in the Masonic Hall.

In 1914, Hightower served as pastor of the Methodist Church at Warwick when a church building was being constructed there. A story is told that Rev. W. E. Hightower walked from the parsonage to the W.D. Etheridge place to pick cotton to pay his part on the new building

Obituary

Butler Herald
December 7, 1950

Rev. W. E. Hightower Claimed By Death Friday Afternoon

Had Made His Home in Butler Since His Retirement Several Years Ago.

Following a long period of declining health, altho confined to his bed at short intervals, laid down to final rest and permanent dwelling place in Heaven, Rev. William E. Hightower breathed his last at his home in Butler Friday afternoon, Dec. 2, the hour of his passing given as 4:05 o’clock.

Rev. Hightower was born April 3, 1879 at Mountville, Ga., the son of the late Mr. Hillard Jones Hightower and Mrs. Frances Elizabeth Hightower. He united with the South Georgia Methodist Conference at its regular annual session December, 1912 from which time until his retirement, due to declining health in December, 1945. During his ministry he served many very fine charges in the conference including two separate appointments at Butler of 2 to 4 years each and six of the nine Methodist churches in Taylor county. His last year with the active ministry in the conference was served at Doerun. Appointments he served included the following: Oakfeld, 1912-13; Nichols, 1914; Valdosta Circuit, 1915; Pineview, 1916; Hamilton Circuit, 1917-18, Howard Circuit, 1919-22; Bronwood, 1923-26; Butler, 1927; Glenville, 1928-29; Uvalda, 1930-31; Butler, 1932-35; Attapulgus, 1936-38; Byronville, 1939-40; Doerun, 1943-44; Retired, 1945. His schooling included, besides grammar and high school in Harris county graduation at Young Harris with the class of 1909 and one year at Vanderbilt.

Upon his retirement from the South Georgia Conference Rev. Hightower purchased and with his lovely and faithful wife, occupying one of the most comfortable homes in Butler. On land adjacent the home he established, more for physical exercise for himself than otherwise, a nursery for the cultivation and sale of floral plants of the highest type and greatest in demand. He loved flowers to the greatest extent as he worked with them as his strength permitted. –t now that he is gone the many fine examples he set by his Godly living and energetic spirit are to be appreciated.

At the Butler Methodist Church Sunday, December 3rd, 1 p. m. was held the funeral services for the departed muchly be loved one followed by interment of the body in the family lot, Hamilton cemetery. Rev. C. W. Hancock, pastor of the local church was in charge of the funeral service and was assisted by the following ministers: Rev. J. Ed Fain, District Superintendent, Columbus District; Rev. T. O. Lambert, assistant pastor, St. Luke church, Columbus, and who joined the conference at the same time as did the deceased, and with whom he has been closely associated ever since; Rev. J. W. M. Stipe Soperton, pastor Butler charge four years previous to 1949; Rev William Childres, Butler. Others occupying the pulpit at the same time were: Rev. W. S. Johnson. Macon County; Rev. W. E. Scott, District Superintendent, Macon D. District; Rev. W. W. Taylor, pastor Reynolds Methodist church; Rev. Ralph Brown, Waverly Hall, Ga.: Rev. Fred Vanlandingham, Smyrna, Ga.

Speaking on behalf of the deceased Rev. C. W. Hancock, pastor of the local church and officiating minister made the following remarks from the pulpit:

“Once again we are in the still and silent presence of death. Yet I am more convinced than ever that for those who love the Lord, death is but the call of God to a larger and fuller life where the limitations of mortal flesh are known no more and the soul rejoices in its liberation. “Did I not already believe in ‘immortality—I would believe today. For a God of infinite power and merciful goodness could do none other than to grant life immortal as the reward for the earthly life of W. E. Hightower. He was blameless in life; devoted to His God; faithful in the ministering of the word; diligent in his service to his fellowman. Many live and pass on—and the world is none the worse off for their going—but not so with our beloved friend. Life will miss him for his usefulness and for the high quality he gave it.

“Immortality is real because already we are beginning to feel the immortality of his earthly life. There are his deeds done that will never be undone. There is the influence shed that will never lose its alluring charm; there is his spoken word that will ever echo in our memory; there are sinners saved who will know sin no more; there are Christians advanced through his inspiration who are attaining unto the high calling of God in Christ Jesus; there are churches with wider visions and larger service that will not fail.

“There is this town and this county. Who among us has done more to bring the Kingdom of God into full fruition in this place than has he° Across a number of years as active pastor of six out of nine Methodist churches in this county and through a number of years as an active superannuate minister he has touched the hearts of men with the healing presence of Christ.

“Many will never forget that he led them to Christ through the illumination of the way. Many will never forget those loving attempts he made to introduce them to Christ and to bring them into the service of Christ’s Church.

“This church will never forget his persistent loyalty, his wise counsel. You men of his Sunday School class will not forget his immortal words from Sunday to Sunday.

“We of the ministry will live in the influence of his moral and spiritual nature and of the consecration to his calling of God. More—God has not forgotten. We are here in the blessed assurance that God has called and issued a welcome summons to this His noble servant. And it can be said of him as it was said of one long ago—‘And he walked with God—and God took him.’ It is the testimony of his life that he pleased both God and man. “As he gave honor to life, he has given dignity to death. In life he testified to the power of religious experience; in death, he declares the church triumphant unto life eternal.

“So may the God of his life be the God of our life that we, like him, can come to the end of the way as one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.”

The floral offering was one of the largest and most elaborate ever witnessed in this section of the state besides a number of memorials in the form of large contributions to the S. S. Annex of the local church and for which Rev. Hightower had been teacher of the Men’s Bible class during the past four years.

The deceased is survived by his widow; one brother, Mr. Claude Hightower of Blairsville, Ga.; two sister, Mrs. Edgar Vandiver, Atlanta; and Miss Aldora Hightower of Mountville. Following funeral service at the local church the body was transferred to Hamilton for interment in the family lot Union cemetery Mr. J. W. Edwards II, of Edwards Bros. Funeral Home was in charge of funeral arrangements.

Leave a Comment

Pledger W. Parker, Ray City Minister

October 5, 2019 at 12:01 am (Uncategorized, Wiregrass Methodists)
Tags: Emily Britton, Emily Elizabeth Britton Parker, Pledger Parker, Ray City Methodist Church

Reverend Pledger Wilson Parker came to Ray City, GA in 1946 to preach in the Ray City Methodist Church. He was a veteran of World War II, and fresh out of seminary; Ray City was his first appointment. He brought his newlywed bride, Emily Britton Parker, to Ray City with him. In addition to supporting the church, she taught in the Ray City School in 1947.

Reverend Pledger Wilson Parker, minister of Ray City Methodist Church, 1946-1947

Obituary

Pledger W. Parker, 92, of Macon, Georgia, went to his eternal home on Wednesday, July 16, 2014, after a short illness at McKendree Village in Hermitage, TN. Pledger was a retired United Methodist minister and a member of the South Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church.

He was born September 20, 1921, to George and Eulalia Parker at Camilla, Georgia. He served as a United States Marine during World War II. Upon his return to the States, he heard the call to preach and went to seminary at Candler School of Theology of Emory University. He served the following United Methodist congregations in Georgia: Ray City; Talbot Circuit; Duluth; St. Luke UMC in Columbus; Ocilla; First UMC in Swainsboro; Aldersgate in Savannah; Centenary in Macon, GA.

Pledger is survived by his wife of 67 years, Emily B. Parker; daughters, Giglia Anne Parker of Loma Linda, CA, Karen Parker DeVan (Jim) of McDonough, GA, Cherie Parker (Jack Keller) of Nashville, TN; grandchildren, Ben DeVan (Kartini), Allison DeVan (Justin Wienke), Juliana Parker Keller, Josh Parker Keller; great-grandchildren, Grace DeVan, and Caroline Wienke.

A Memorial Service will be held at Mulberry Street United Methodist Church on Tuesday, July 22, 2:00 p.m. The family will greet guests in the Fellowship Hall immediately following the Memorial Service.

Honorary Pallbearers are the ministers and spouses of the South Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, and the members of the Interest Group Sunday School Class of Mulberry Street United Methodist Church.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Memorial Fund of Mulberry Street UMC, P. O. Box 149, Macon, GA 31202, or to your favorite charity.

Leave a Comment

Emily Britton Parker, Ray City Teacher

August 24, 2019 at 12:53 am (Ray City School, Uncategorized, Wiregrass Methodists)
Tags: Barbara Swindle, Charles Britton, Eleanor Britton, Emily Britton, Emily Elizabeth Britton Parker, Pledger Parker, Ray City Methodist Church, Ray City School, Wesleyan College, Wesleyannes

Emily Britton Parker taught at Ray City School in 1947. She was a fresh graduate of Wesleyan College, Class of 1947, where she was a schoolmate of Barbara Swindle of Ray City, GA. She was the bride of Reverend Pledger Parker, who served as minister of the Ray City Methodist Church in 1946-1947.

Emily Britton Parker, Wesleyan College senior portrait, 1947.

Emily Britton, Wesleyan College senior portrait, 1947.

Emily Britton Parker, Wesleyan College senior portrait caption, 1947.

Emily Britton, Wesleyan College senior portrait caption, 1947.

Ostensibly Emily is majoring in religion, but her real major is an important man named Pledger. Her religious sincerity, her straightforward honesty, her sympathetic listening ability and her warm friendly smile endear her to all Wesleyannes. Emily, with her sparkling eyes, and untiring energies in a variety of fields, have made her a real asset to Wesleyan.

Emily Britton Parker, Wesleyan College accomplishments, 1947.

Emily Britton, Wesleyan College accomplishments, 1947.

Emily Britton
Camilla, Georgia
Religion

Pres. Freshman Commission; Hiking Club 1; I. R. C. 1, 2, 3, 4; Sophomore Council; Advisor to Freshman Commission 2; Glee Club 3, 4; Chairman Macon Church Activities on “Y” 3; Junior Marshall; Dance Club 4; National Methodist Church Scholarship 4; Vesper Choir 4.

†

Obituary

Emily Elizabeth Britton Parker
6/21/1925 – 11/2/2017

Emily Elizabeth Britton Parker, 92, of Macon, Georgia, went to her eternal home on November 2, 2017. At the time of her death, she resided at McKendree Village in Hermitage, Tennessee. The Reverend Pledger Wilson Parker, a member of the South Georgia Conference, and Emily were married for 67 years prior to his death in 2014.

Emily was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 21, 1925, to The Reverend Charles Britton, Jr., and his wife, Eleanor. Since her father was a member of the South Georgia Conference, Emily spent her childhood in several South Georgia communities. After graduating from A. L. Miller High School in Macon, she attended Wesleyan College, graduating cum laude in 1947 with a degree in Christian Education. She later pursued graduate studies in Library Science at Georgia Southern College, University of Georgia Extension Service, Georgia College at Milledgeville, and Mercer University.

Emily was the Director of Christian Education at Mulberry Street United Methodist Church for three years. She was also the Head Librarian of the Junior Department of Macon’s Washington Memorial Public Library for four years, an Elementary School Media Specialist for nine years, and a school teacher.

She was actively involved in the South Georgia Conference as a youth and as an adult. Emily organized the South Georgia Conference Ministers’ Wives Retreat and served as President for two years. She was an avid participant in the Women’s Society of Christian Service and United Methodist Women on the conference and local church levels. She was active in the life and ministry of the churches Pledger served, often working with college-age students. After his retirement from the pastorate, they connected with Mulberry Street UMC, where they particularly enjoyed being part of the Interest Group Sunday School Class and the “Scampers” Camping Group. In 2010 they moved to Nashville to be near their daughter, Cherie.

Emily was devoted to her family. She was the consummate hostess and loved to cook for family, friends, and the many people that ministry brought into her sphere. She loved hiking, camping, and bird-watching, was a charter member of the Georgia Wilderness Society, and was active in the Ocmulgee Audubon Society. She also served on the Board of the Friends of the Library. Emily loved attending cultural events and playing and teaching board games. She possessed a powerful will and boundless energy. It can truly be said of Emily: “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of our Lord.”

Emily is survived by three daughters: Giglia Parker of Loma Linda, California; Karen Parker DeVan (Jim) of McDonough, Georgia; and Cherie Parker (Jack Keller) of Nashville, Tennessee; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

A graveside service officiated by The Reverend Dr. Peter van Eys was held on November 6 in the Westview Cemetery in Atlanta. A memorial service, officiated by The Reverend Creede Hinshaw and The Reverend Jimmy Towson, was held at Mulberry Street UMC on November 7. Phillips-Robinson Funeral Home in Nashville was in charge of funeral arrangements.
– Book of Remembrance, Southe Georgia Conference, United Methodist Church.

Leave a Comment

In Salem Church

July 27, 2019 at 12:07 am (Uncategorized, Wiregrass Methodists)
Tags: Berry Jones Folsom, Billy Sineath, Eli Driver Webb, Hamilton W. Sharpe, James R. Folsom, Jesse J. Giles, Joseph T. Webb, Leonard C. Peake, Lewis Folsom, Montgomery M. Folsom, New Salem Church, Randal Folsom, Reverend John Hendry, Salem Methodist Church, William D. Smith, William McGuire, William Varn

Salem Methodist Church

Salem Church, Lowndes County, GA circa 1866

Salem Church is among the earliest Methodist churches in this section. The church would have been on the Troupville Circuit ridden by Reverend Peurifoy, a Methodist circuit rider of Wiregrass Georgia. Other Methodist churches on the circuit included Troupville, established about 1832, Oak Grove Church, Concord Church, and Bethlehem Church. Pre-dating any of these churches was the annual Methodist revival held at the old Lowndes Camp Ground, later called the Mount Zion Camp Ground. The earliest Methodist church in Ray City was organized in 1910.

About Salem Church

“The exact year this church was organized is unknown but it is believed that the original church building was a small log structure constructed near a spring fed branch behind the present 110-year-old home place of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Folsom. The existing Salem UMC was built on its new location in 1856, on land that was deeded by Eli Driver Webb. The first trustees were Randall Folsom, Joseph T. Webb, William Varn, William D. Smith and Berry J. Folsom. It is believed that the first pastor of Salem was either Rev. Joseph T. Webb or Rev. Hamilton W. Sharpe, both local Methodist preachers of that era. Many of the citizens of the community attended school in a one-room school across the street from the church and, when needed, the church was also used for classroom space.” – South Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church

Salem Church was attended by slave owners and slaves, as well. The church kept two graveyards, a white cemetery and an African-American cemetery. There is still a distinct line between the two cemeteries, one with unmarked graves, the other with neat white headstones and plush grass. Laying in the marked graves are many of the Folsom family connection, among them Dr. James Rountree Folsom, father of Montgomery M. Folsom.

M.M. Folsom was one of the best known and most versatile newspaper men in the South, according to his obituary. He was a great and prolific writer of prose and poetry, which was widely read and copied. In the September 14, 1885, Atlanta Constitution, Montgomery M. Folsom recalls Salem Church of his youth.

In Salem Church

The Memory of a Middle Age Man Stirred Up.

M.M. Folsom in Valdosta, Ga, Times.

Let me see, the old church must be getting old indeed, now; I am shiffling along toward the dim and mysterious regions of the third decade of life, and, I am beginning to feel right patriarchal. Yes, I was walking along the street a few days since when a diminutive specimen of the genus homo accosted me with “hello, old chum,” and I came very near rebuking him on the spot, but on second thought I remember how fine a sense of ridicule the modern ragmuffin is blessed with, so I contented myself with a withering glance, and then winked to keep him from thinking hard of me. Good gracious! How egotistical I am growing. But never mind, I’m going to be a country editor, some day, and then I can use that delusive pronoun “we” and then we’ll make ourself just as great an ass as we choose, and no one will molest us or make our cheek to blush.
Well, that church is a few months older than I, but I trust it hasn’t half as much to answer for. When last I threw a ball at its stately front I tried to hit the figure “6” in the date, “1856” painted above the tall columns which support its venerable front.
Long time ago there was another Salem, built of logs, clap-boards and puncheons. “H.W.S.” could tell you all about it. The good Methodists decided to build a new one, and the present site, fronting the old Coffee road, was selected. I think William McGuire was the master carpenter in the job, but I don’t know, it has been so long. Oh! what a flood of sweet old memories come trouping along as, in fancy, I sit once more within those sacred walls. A goodly space, in the rear of the pulpit was partitioned off for the negroes who were then slaves, of course.
Certain seats were recognized as the special property of certain old people, not that we had any pew renting, and the like of that, but they came so regularly, and occupied the same seat so often, that younger folks soon learned to look for Uncle Randal on a long bench near the partition, with the south window at his back. Dear old man! How I loved to watch his portly figure as he waddled up the isle, and the few scant locks glistening like a glowing silver light above his ruddy brow. Uncle Billy Sineath was bent with age and hard labor. He would plow hard all the week, and till near meeting time Saturday, then he donned his meeting clothes, and started for the church just like the true Christian that he was. His face was rugged, and the dark eyes glowed beneath a pair of cavernous brows, but never a kinder heart beat in the bosom of any man. Uncle Hamp was always there, too, with a kind word and a hearty handshake for every one. What made him more conspicuous was the tall beaver, that he took off at the door. Now there is a great deal of individuality about a hat. Grandpa and Uncle Billy Sineath wore broad brims, and the brim had to turn up in certain places, while in others it must lay flat, or curve around in a peculiar manner. I used to wonder how much time they spent training a new hate ere it acquired the regulation flop. Our old teacher was straight as an arrow and nearly as slim, his hair was always gray, I suppose, but when he patted one of us little urchins on the head as he stepped into the porch, we were of the elect the balance of that day. But why try to describe such individual? It would require volumes simple to record their goodness and the act of Christian charity which they did in their days.
I remember one sermon that touched me, boy as I was, deeply and it stirred the depths of the hearts of every individual in the vast congregation that were packed in the church. Leonard C. Peake had lately been blind, but his sight was now restored. A man of venerable aspect and commanding presence, he stood in the pulpit that day and preached as I never heard man preach before. His text was “And Moses said unto——-” but I can’t remember, it was so long ago but it read on- “we are journeying unto the land which the Lord God hath given us. Come thou and go with us, and we will do thee good.” In the course of his sermon he told how, after a season of darkness, he had been allowed to look again on the blessed light of Heaven. Oh, that was a time long to be remembered.
Then there was Jesse J. Giles, the happiest looking man I ever saw. His soul knew no wintry season. His face eternally beamed with the smiles of a perpetual spring season. To look at him was to love him, and to love him was but a step removed from the worship of that God whom he worshiped with the most sublime adoration. His voice was as a woman’s and the musical tones were like the strains of music from some faraway land. The old well-worn copy of “John Wesley” that he gave me so many years ago lies before me as I write. Unhidden tears bedim my eyes as I think of the last words he ever said to me.
But the grandest old warrior was big, burly, tender-hearted John Hendry. His voice was of that deep, rich kind which men of slender chests are wont to covet. The tawny beard covered his face and hung down on his breast. When he ascended the pulpit steps the evil doer trembled, and the first syllable of that deep voice sent a thrill through me like an electric shock. And oh! you ought to have heard him sing,
“I’m glad salvations’ free!”
The great voice filled the whole building, and the thunder tones went reverbating and re echoing among the dark pine woods. Wafted by the soft evening breeze the echoes grew fainter and fainter until the word “Salvation” died away on the hilltops faraway, away, where the autumn moon shed such a wondrous shower of golden light.
But we had one funny parson, I’ve forgotten his name. He said that when he left his last circuit he left “six crowing roosters sitting on the front yard fence.” He never stayed long.
Another was a visionary and a dreamer. In fact, he was so fond of relating his wonderful dreams, that there grew a proverb out of it, and we sacrilegious boys were in the habit of illustrating our opinion of a doubtful yarn by saying, “Ah! you thought like—–dreamt when you studied that up.”
There was one man who could never pray without weeping. His voice would grow husky and broken and his petition always ended in a heart-broken sob. If that man wasn’t a Christian I never knew one.
Good men they were. I have not mentioned a tithe of them. The subject is too big for me. I cannot write of things that touch such tender chords, and wake such sacred memories. All that was best in my wasted life is interwoven with the story of old Salem. How often in my wanderings have I cast my longing eyes thitherward, and sighed to think of the days that are past forever more.

“Blest scenes of enjoyment long have we been parted,
My hopes almost gone, and my parents no more;
And now as an exile, forlorn, broken-hearted,
I wonder alone on a far distant shore.”

Leave a Comment

« Older entries

Ray City History Blog

Louisa Bird Peurifoy: Minister’s Wife

Reverend Edwin B. Carroll

Captain J. D. Evans was Skulking and Hiding Out

Desertion of J. D. Evans

Reverend Carl Winn Minor

Reverend Carl Winn Minor (1868-1940)

A Brief History of Beaver Dam Baptist Church

George W. Davis ~ Methodist Circuit Rider

W. E. Hightower, Methodist Minister

Pledger W. Parker, Ray City Minister

Emily Britton Parker, Ray City Teacher

In Salem Church

About Salem Church

Ray City History

Email Subscription

Contact the Editor

Recent Posts

Categories

Blogroll

Archives

Meta