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.
- Captain of the Berrien Minute Men
- Confederate Coastal Artillery
- The Atlanta Campaign
- POW on Johnson’s Island
- Missionary Baptist
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.
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.
On Sunday, April 10, 1904 memorial services were held at his old church at Hickory Head, GA with his widow in attendance.
- Edwin B. Carroll, Captain of the Berrien Minute Men
- Captain Edwin B. Carroll and the Atlanta Campaign
- Berrien Minute Men at Johnson’s Island Prison, Ohio
- Levi J. Knight, Jr on List of Incompetent Confederate Officers
- Campfires of the Berrien Minute Men
Ray City History Blog 