Detailed records of these achievements from a national point of view are lacking for the reason that the Negro Baptists prior to the organization of the National Baptist Convention had no national body of their own. During the antebellum period they belonged largely to the white churches in the South, occupying certain seats, the Negro pew, or meeting in the basement of the same edifice for worship at a special hour on the Sabbath day. In most cities in the North the independent movement among Negroes brought about the establishment of their own local churches; but, when associated, they generally belonged to the white bodies, used their literature, and followed their doctrines. As many of the white churches and organizations took little account of what these Negro communicants were doing but rather considered them as an undesirable but inevitable adjunct, no complete records of their achievements are extant. Here and there a writer of the history of the Baptists gave them honorable mention and now and then a Negro Baptist preacher in a locality had sufficient appreciation of the value of records to leave an account. The location and the status of some of these Baptist churches will be interesting, especially in the South where their development was retarded by the restrictions of a slaveholding section living in dread of servile insurrection. During the thirties and forties a number of Negro Baptist churches were established in the District of Columbia, the first one being organized by Sampson White in 1839 and reaching its position of permanence some years later under William Williams, whose flock was the largest of this sect in the city. As it could not be associated with Negro churches in the South, then dominated by white men in the interest of slaveholders, it connected itself with the Philadelphia Baptist Association. The first Negro Baptist Church in Baltimore was organized in 1836 and was making unusual progress under the direction of M. C. Clayton, with a membership of 150 in 1846. A number of other Baptist churches in the city were soon organized thereafter, furnishing opportunity for development to its several useful Negro ministers, among whom was Rev. Noah Davis of the Saratoga Street Baptist Church. [Illustration: NOAH DAVIS A Baptist preacher in Baltimore almost a century ago.]