History [Of] First Baptist Church, Elizabeth City, North Carolina, 1786
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
DUKE UNIVERSITY DIVINITY SCHOOL LIBRARY HISTORY FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH Elizabeth City, North Carolina 1786-1961 By A. H. OUTLAW ' t Preface ; ' • / ^ ^> r 4~ /J The Board of Deacons in March, 1960 appointed Mr. Gerald White and Mrs. J. H. LeRoy, Jr. to look into the advisabihty of having the Church history written and should they find it advisable at this time were given authority to take whatever steps they deem plausable to have the work done. The following month Mrs. LeRoy approached me in regard to doing the job. I was flattered and was conscious, as I have increasingly been throughout the undertaking, of my limitations. And yet, the Church had meant too much to me and my family for me to shirk a task which the committee, the Board of Deacons and the entire membership has seemed so willing to trust me with. Here, I was ordain- ed to the Baptist ministry and after some years the Church gave me the honorary title of Assistant Pastor. Here, my wife and I have worship- ed and led our two daughters to worship. Here, our daughters made a public profession of faith and were baptized at a tender and impression- able age and subsequently took their marriage vows. The Church, over the past thirty years and particularly during my recent extended illness, made many presentations of lo\'e and friendship. Well, when Mrs, LeRoy came to see me I tried to show some degree of modesty, but down deep I really wanted to do the history, if I could. It has been a pleasure. It has truly been a labor of lo\'e and gratitude. But tlie gathering and put- ting together of tliese historical data, though it has been long and tedious, is only a small token in comparison with my indebtedness to the Church. A book of history is like a telescope through which one may look into the past ages. See the customs, achievements, shortcomings of those who lived before him. Antiquity comes alive to his clouded memo- ries, and he is able to comprehend the trutli or falsity of tlie many tales and traditions which he has heard. Moreover, he may profit by tlie fortunes or misfortunes of his forebears. There is a well worn tradition tliat our Church minutes up to 1857 were lost in a fire, which is probably true, but there are no refer- ences in the immediately succeeding minutes to prove it, much less to give any details which we would ordinarily expect. There may have been a fire in 1846 or 1847. We do not know what became of the Meet- ing House which was replaced with a new one, the construction of which began in the early part of 1847. It is possible this old Meeting House was burned as was the first one on Knobs Creek, and the records up to that time burned in it. But if that be the case the question arises: Where are the minutes of the next ten years? Another possibility is that they could have been burned in a fire which destroyed a parsonage in the early part of 1886. Could the minute books have been divided, with those up to 1857 in the parsonage and burned, and those after 1857 somewhere else and saved? The most likely fire to have destroyed them was one mentioned in the February 25, 1860 minutes but there are some questions about this fire which will have to go unanswered. In that con- ference it is stated "No minutes were read as a consequence of their having been burnt up in the recent fire." Where was the fire - in the Church, parsonage, Clerk's home? When? What else belonging to the Church was lost? Something else is strange about tliis conference: The two previous leaves in that minute book and the bottom sections of three lea\es previous to them have, some time, been cut out of the book with no explanation of why it was done. We presume this fire to have oc- curred the month or quarter preceding that February 25 conference, depending upon whether it was a monthly or quarterly conference; and it was those minutes that were not read. If in fact however, tliis was the fire which tradition tells us destroyed our minutes up to 1857, the logical assumption is that those minutes were in a book or books at the scene of the fire while the minutes beginning with March 27, 1857, the earliest we have, to February 25, 1860 were in another book being kept somewhere else at the time. It is a fact that our March 27, 1857 minutes do begin a new book. In view of this tragedy, wherever and whenever it happened, the task of obtaining complete information for the first seventy years of our history has been one impossible of achievement. However, a few cryptic notes by historians writing during that period and minutes of our Cho- wan Association and Kehukee, the mother Association, give us informa- tion worth\' to be documented in this volumn. On July 4, 1868 the Church appointed Brothers J. M. and A. B. Morgan to collect information in regard to its history. This was only 68 years after constitution and many were still alive who could have help- ed them and they could have given us a fair picture of what transpired, but if they made any attempts and compiled anytliing at all, there is no record of it. Several years ago Dr. J. T. Riddick, a Chowan Association native and friend of this Church, furnished us a typewritten copy of a study which he made principally from the Associational minutes which dealt mostly with a list of successive pastors and a few other notes of interest. Some of this has been very helpful, but information available now which was probably not available to him proves a few of his observations to be in error. I have relied a great deal, however upon much of Dr. Riddick's manuscript history and have been able to supplement it in many respects. When Mrs. Kate Wood Aydlett was Church Secretary a few years ago she made 40 or 50 pages of typewritten notes taken from tlie Church minutes witli the view of writing a brief history herself, but abandoned the idea and made her notes available to our committee. They have been a great deal of help. I have read all existing Church minutes, Associational minutes both Kehukee and Chowan; and everything else I could find that would spread any light upon any area of the Church activities. Many letters have been written and many people interviewed. In fact, I have written to and interviewed a few so many times about so many things, that I have felt like I was imposing upon and pestering them, but whenever it was possible to help they have come tlirough with flying colors, for which I am deeply grateful. Most of tlie important phases of our Church life has been treated upon, but I have tried not to burden the reader with too much detail. Perhaps there were some phases that should have been included and some included that should have been omitted. There are many missing links in the chain of events which make the history far from complete and leaves much to be desired because of incomplete and inaccurate records and because of my own limitations to put into writing properly what we do have. But it is submitted with the hope and prayer that it may prove interesting and inspiring enough to be read; that it may lead us to a greater appreciation of our history, a greater interest in the Kingdom of God, and that whatever our organizations and programs may be, they may be recorded and preserved for the encouragement of those who come after us. It should be of great interest to this and future generations of our Church that under a project sponsored by the State Department of Archives and History our Church minutes from 1857 to 1960 have been microfilmed by that Department to be preserved in Raleigh and read with ease through their reading machine by anyone who may be in- terested. ABNER H. OUTLAW Contents I. Historical Background, Constitution and Associational Affiliation 8 II. Names Adopted by the Church 15 III. From Calvinism to Arminianism 18 IV. Church Covenants 21 V. Rules of Decorum 26 VI. The Sanctuary 33 VII. Additional Building Programs 56 VIII. Pastors 64 IX. The Office of Deacon and List of Deacons 83 X. Clerks (Secretaries) 93 XI. Treasurers and Financial Secretaries 95 XII. Frequency of Preaching 105 XIII. The Baptistry and the Ordinance of Baptism 107 XIV. The Memorial Supper 113 XV. Disciplining of the Members 117 XVI. Baptist Burial Ground 128 XVII. Methods of Financing 143 XVIII. Sunday School 151 XIX. Revivals 1 59 XX. Spot Checks on the Growth in Membership 167 XXI. Our Daughter Churches 170 XXII. Pastors' Homes 183 XXIII. Ordained Ministers Other Than Pastors Holding Membership in the Church 192 XXIV. Singing and Music 205 XXV. The Ladies Aid Society 217 XXVI. Woman's Missionary Society 222 XXVII. Sunday Bulletins 226 XXVIII. Missions Other Than Daughter Churches 252 XXIX. Missions and Benevolences 258 XXX. Baptist Training Union 266 XXXI. Educational Directors 270 XXXII. Daily Vacation Bible School 272 XXXIII. Baptist Brotherhood 275 XXXIV. Entertainment of Associations, Conventions, etc. 277 XXXV. In Memoriam (Memorial Gifts) 281 XXXVI. Miscellaneous 286 XXXVll. Conclusion 296 CHAPTER I Historical Background, Constitution and Associational Affiliation According to Burkitt and Read, History of the Kehukee Associa- tion, the Gospel was first preached in this neighborhood by the Baptists about 1760.