The center of interest among the Negro Baptists in Florida was Jacksonville. There the First Bethel Baptist Church was organized in 1838 with four whites and two Negroes as charter members. These were Rev. J. Jaudan and wife, Deacon James McDonald and wife and two slaves belonging to Jaudan. They held their first meetings in the Government Block House near the County Court House but later purchased on Church Street, between Hogan and Julia Streets, a lot on which was built the first edifice. When later the whites decided to separate from the Negroes and undertook to dispossess them altogether the court decided that the property belonged to the Negroes in as much as they were in the majority. Later, however, the Bethel Baptist Church sold out this property to the whites and purchased property on the corner of Main and Union Streets. In our day we have seen the Bethel Baptist Church incorporated by the State as an institutional church which figures as an important factor in the life of the Negroes of Jacksonville. In the western slave States, where the Negroes were few, they were, nevertheless, found in considerable numbers in the Baptist Church. One-fourth of the Baptists in Tennessee were Negroes. The membership in Kentucky was of a much larger proportion. The African Baptist Church of Lexington was founded by a thrifty Negro who, in spite of the law, was permitted to remain in the State as a worthy free Negro and as such not only preached but as early as the thirties had accumulated a fortune valued at $20,000. In 1846 this church under the leadership of L. Terrell was the largest in the Elkhorn Association and was considered "orderly and flourishing." During these years the First African Baptist Church of Louisville had been developing along the same line and was the largest in its association, having 644 members. Under the pastorate of Rev. Henry Adams, a man of considerable education and ability to lead, it attained a position of much usefulness. The Negro Baptist Church of St. Louis, founded in 1827, was, in 1848, the largest in its connection and with the impetus given the work by its pastor, J. B. Meacham, it became still more influential.