This church deserves honorable mention. Rev. A. F. Owens led to the
purchase of the property on St. Anthony street, and served as pastor
for several years--1878 to 1889. Rev. A. N. McEwen, the present pastor,
advised the church to sell and purchase at a more desirable point. They
are now buying a building on Franklyn street. This church has had an
earnest class of workers, who have made great and painful sacrifices
for the cause.
UNION CHURCH.
This church is another secession from Stone Street. It, too, has some
strong people in it. Rev. A. F. Owens is pastor.
* * * * *
There are other churches around worthy of mention. So much is said only
to show the rise and progress of the Baptist cause in this section
of Alabama. The great need here is more brotherly love, instead of
the bitter prejudice which withers every hope of united effort. Of
course, many of the good people are already free from its fearful
influence, but far too many are still slaves to it.
Among the founders, or ante-bellum members of the colored Baptist work
in Mobile, we find the names of Rev. Charles Leavens and wife, James
Somerville, Judge Europe, Thomas Sawyer, Rev. B. J. Burke, and Crawley
Johnson.
HUNTSVILLE, MADISON COUNTY.
Here is where our Statehood was born, the Constitution being formed
here in 1819. Huntsville is our State’s first capital. Taking Mr.
Hosea Holcombe as authority, the first Baptist church organized in
Alabama was constituted within a few miles of Huntsville, in 1808.
Their constitutional membership was eleven, and Rev. John Nicholson
was their first pastor. The first negro Baptist church constituted in
this section of the State was the African Baptist Church of Huntsville,
organized about the year 1820. I say 1820, for the reason that in 1821
they are recorded as entering into the Flint River Association, with
seventy-six members. Rev. William Harris, “a free colored man,” is
mentioned as their first pastor. It seems that Brother Harris soon fell
under the influence of a white preacher, William Crutcher, and became
established in the faith of the Primitive Baptists. Over seventy
years have passed away, and still Rev. Bartlett Harris, a grandson of
Rev. William Harris, is preaching the “election of grace.” Instead
of seventy-six Missionary members, there are now about two thousand
Primitives. The Rev. W. H. Gaston is the leading educator among them.
He is a man of quiet and humble spirit, and is now trying to establish
a school at Huntsville. How we Missionaries need a school in Madison
county! Our little Missionary church seems bound hand and foot. At
this writing, Rev. Oscar Gray is pastor, and he seems to do as well as
circumstances allow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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