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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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