Petersburg, which as early as 1803 undertook to erect its first structure. Sampson White then went to Norfolk for a short stay in this inviting field, and in 1839 came to Washington and organized the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church. [Illustration: SAMPSON WHITE A Baptist preacher in Virginia, the District of Columbia, and New York almost a century ago.] In the District of Columbia, where, as in Maryland, the restrictions on Negroes were not so rigid as in some other parts of the South, the Negroes had numerous churches of the Baptist and Methodist faith, and under the leadership of John F. Cooke established, in 1843, the Fifteenth Street Presbyterian Church. Baltimore was no exception to this rule. As the slave and free membership freely mingled in that city they had, as early as 1835, ten congregations, and by 1847 thirteen, ten of which were Methodist. The work of the Baptists had been largely promoted by M. C. Clayton, the preacher of versatile genius, who founded the First African Church in that city in 1836, and by Noah Davis, a leader and organizer of much ability. [Illustration: REV. M. C. CLAYTON A Baptist preacher of power in Baltimore before the Civil War.] This favorable condition, however, obtained in the South only in those communities where the authorities winked at the violation of the law by free Negroes and where slaves enjoyed unusual privileges because their masters were a law unto themselves. In 1828 the Alabama Baptist Association conditionally purchased a slave named Caesar at the cost of $625 and sent him to preach the gospel and live among his people. He was then made the companion of the famous white evangelist, James McLemore, of much note in Alabama. Caesar was respected alike for piety and his ability as a preacher. Not infrequently he addressed audiences composed entirely of whites. Another slave of Alabama, Doc Phillips, was a Baptist preacher of a commanding influence among his people. The Tuskegee Association of that State undertook to purchase him that he might be appointed a missionary, but he declined to be severed from his master, who allowed him whatever time he might desire for preaching. So was this true of George Bentley of Giles County, Tennessee, a slave of unusual note, having attained distinction as a preacher of power, well versed in polemic theology. Out of a debate on baptism lasting more than four days he emerged victor over a white minister in that county challenging him to a discussion of the principles of baptism. He numbered among his communicants the best white people of the community, who paid him a salary of more than $600. He, like Doc Phillips, refused to have his congregation purchase his freedom, as he did not care to be separated from his kind master.