Category: Uncategorized

January 16, 1821: Prominent black missionaries Lott Cary and Collin Teague sailed to Liberia from Norfolk, VA.  ABHS has a folder of Lott Cary’s correspondence as a missionary.  His information is in our on-line collection called ArchivesSpace.

 

Anna Barbara Grey (RG 1414) was a physician in Burma and India.  Her collection is now available to researchers, and is listed in our on-line catalog ArchivesSpace.

 

After a period of training in the U.S. and in London, Dr. Grey was appointed a missionary of the WABFMS in 1922.  She was instrumental in the development of the Ellen Mitchell Memorial Hospital in Burma.  When the war came to Burma in 1941, Gray and the staff evacuated the patients before she went to India in January 1942.  She worked as a member of the medical staff of the Victoria Memorial Mission Hospital in Hanamkonda and the American Baptist Mission Hospital in Nellore. In 1945, she returned briefly to Moulmein under the sponsorship of the Red Cross to investigate damages.   She returned to the U.S. in 1957 and retired.

January 12, 1724:  Samuel Harris, the persecuted defender of religious liberty, was born in Hanover County, VA.  ABHS has booklets, tracts and sermons about the importance of religious liberty (especially in the matter of baptism) in colonial America, some dating to 1700.

 

The papers of Loren and Ruth Noren  (MP143), have been added to the archives, and information about this collection is in our on-line inventory, ArchivesSpace.  This couple were American Baptist missionaries in China circa 1945-1986.  Rev. Noren was educated at Ottawa University (Kansas), 1940, A.A.; Andover Newton, 1944, B.D.; Yale University; Union Theology Seminary, 1960. Ordained: 1943. Spouse: Muriel Ruth Wedepohl (1918-), married in 1941. Home State: Nebraska.

 

January 8, 1841.  Judson College was chartered in Marion, AL, as Judson Female Institute.  It was founded by members of Siloam Baptist Church; the three individuals  who were most instrumental in the founding were Julia Tarrant Barron, General Edwin D. King, and Milo P. Jewett.  ABHS has information from and about many of the Baptist related colleges.

 

January 5, 1527:  Felix Manz, Swiss Anabaptist, was sentenced to death by the Zurich Council for his beliefs.  Freedom of religion was not a common concept prior to the Constitution of the United States.

The collection of Edith Tarver (RG 1078) is now available to researchers, and is listed in our on-line catalog, ArchivesSpace.  She was an American Baptist missionary in South China circa 1906-1939. She was educated at the University of Idaho and the Baptist Missionary Training School (Chicago).  Her collection contains several textiles from China.

Dec. 30, 1798.  Isaac Backus commented against Federalist Party foreign policy in opposition to France.  Backus was a leading Baptist preacher during the era of the American Revolution who campaigned against state-established churches in New England.   Isaac Backus joined John Brown, Nicholas Brown, William Ellery, Stephen Hopkins, James Manning, Ezra Stiles, Samuel Stillman, Morgan Edwards and several others as an original fellow or trustee for the chartering of the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (the original name for Brown University), the first Baptist school of higher learning.  Backus served as a delegate from Middleborough to the Massachusetts ratifying convention, which ratified the United States Constitution in 1788. He voted in favor of ratification.  ABHS has a collection of Isaac Backus’ papers and many volumes by and about him.

 

December 28, 2018.  Fred and Ruth Meyer’s son (see December 20) visited the Philippines to see where his parents were martyred.  On his return he developed an 80 slide show about his parents, their work as missionaries, and their death.  See our on-line catalog, ArchivesSpace (Meyer, Frederick and Ruth Collection) for more information.

Another collection added to ArchivesSpace is RG 1170: Emilie Ballard. Emilie was born in Maryland and after nearly three years in the Army Nurses Corps during World War II, she entered Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadlephia. She was a missionary in Burma for 16 years, teaching science, first aid and Bible in a 2-year nurses training course for village health workers. She then worked in Thailand, for 21 years. Emilie retired in 1990 and lives in California.

 

Dec. 24. 1915.  William H. Doane, composer and hymnist, died in South Orange, NJ.  Doane was a manufacturer, inventor, hymn writer, choral director, church leader and philanthropist. He composed over 2000 church hymns. More than seventy patents are credited to him for innovations in woodworking machinery. His philanthropy led to the renaming of the Granville Academy, as the Doane Academy, a boys’ and girls’ private preparatory school associated with Denison University in Granville, Ohio, where he was a major benefactor.  Although raised in a Presbyterian household, Doane converted to his mother’s Baptist faith, while a young student at Woodstock Academy. This conversion began a lifelong commitment to service in that church, through his musical compositions, choir direction, denominational leadership and philanthropy.

Doane was a prolific composer of Christian hymn tunes. He edited forty-three collections of hymns and composed an estimated 2,300 works, including hundreds of original hymns and hymn settings. He is best known as a longtime collaborator of Fanny Crosby, having written music for an estimated 1,500 of Crosby’s poems.  As well as hymns, Doane composed secular instrumental, vocal, and choral works, including two cantatas on the legend of Santa Claus.   ABHS has a scollection of Doane’s business dealings, charitable endeavors, copyright registrations, sheet music and family photographs and memorabilia.  The Doane Collection inventory is now available on ArchivesSpace.

December 23, 1844.  A letter from the Triennial Convention was on its way to the Alabama Convention saying that in good conscience the Convention could not appoint a slave holder as a missionary.  There is much correspondence and debate about this issue, and the letter sets out the reasons why they could not approve such an appointment.  This answer set in motion the split between the Southern Baptists and the Northern Baptists.  ABHS has the original hand written minutes of this and other Triennial Conventions as well as a typed transcript.

 

Dec. 22, 1776.  Henry Abbot submitted a resolution to North Carolina allowing all ministers to perform marriages.  Under colonial rule only the established church was authorized to perform the marriage ceremony, and this privilege was extended to dissenting sects only after ties with the mother country had been severed.   Abbot’s resolution provided that ministers of all denominations might perform the marriage rite. Although passed in a slightly amended form, this resolution was the forerunner of a state law approved by the legislature some fifteen months later. In 1776, Abbot and four other men were chosen to represent Pasquotank County in the provincial congress that met at Halifax and endorsed American independence.  He is generally recognized as author of the nineteenth article of the state constitution, which made formal acknowledgement that “all men have natural and inalienable rights to worship almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience.” Variously described as an “elegant gentleman” and “popular idol,” Abbot came to exercise an influence hardly equaled by ministers from his area before or since. Henry Abbot is mentioned in several of the reference books in the Reading Room.

 

Dec. 20, 1943.  Eleven Baptist missionaries were captured and executed by the Japanese in the Philippines.  The missionaries had been in hiding since the beginning of the war, supported by the local people.  They created chapel they called Hopevale.  Known as the Hopevale Martyrs, Jeannie Clare Adams, James “Jimmy” Howard Covell and his wife Charma Covell, Dorothy Antionette Dowell, Signe Amelia Erickson, Frederick Meyer and his wife Ruth Meyer, Francis Rose and his wife Gertrude Rose, Erle Rounds and his wife Louise Rounds, and finally Erle Douglas, the Rounds’ son, are remembered for their bravery and faith.  ABHS has photographs and records of these missionaries and the Hopevale chapel.

December 18, 2018.  ABHS has about 1400  biographical files on missionaries sent by International Missions (Foreign Missionary Societies).  The list has now been put on our on-line repository, ArchivesSpace.  Anyone can access the list by going to ArchivesSpace and putting Biographical Files in the search bar and clicking on Biographical Files in the resulting list.  If you scroll down, you can see the list although  the actual file is not on-line.

Dec. 16, 1769.  Jesse Mercer, hymnist and preacher, was born in Halifax County, NC.  Mercer University in Georgia was named after him.  As a delegate to Georgia’s constitutional convention in 1798, he helped to defeat a proposal that would have made ministers ineligible to hold public office in Georgia. The convention’s delegates also gave Mercer the responsibility for writing the section of Georgia’s constitution guaranteeing religious liberty to the state’s citizens. Mercer made a run for the state senate in 1816 but was unsuccessful. From 1817 to 1835 Mercer also served four times as a delegate to the Triennial Convention which supported foreign missions. ABHS has many volumes by and about Jesse Mercer and Mercer University.  ABHS’s offices and archives are on the Mercer University Atlanta campus.

Dec. 15 1836  The first Baptist church in Australia, Bathhurst Church in New South Wales, was constituted by John Saunders.  At an anniversary celebration they give thanks to those pioneer preachers who saw the need to bring the Gospel to this town of 5000 people with its 50 pubs. They gathered around them a core group to establish a church within a year of meeting in the old courthouse. Bathurst was the gateway to the west and it was from these beginnings that the Gospel began spreading further afield in the surrounding area and then further westward. ABHS has Yearbooks from the New South Wales and Queensland Baptist churches.

December 12, 1829.  William Staughton, pioneer in the areas of missions and education, died in Washington, DC.   Staughton was a Baptist clergyman, educator, and music composer. He was also a Chaplain of the United States Senate and the first President of Columbian College from 1821-1827, which is the original name and oldest division (1821) of The George Washington University.  He accepted a position as President of the Literary and Theological Institution of Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky in September 1829. However, while making the journey to the College, Staughton died on December 12, 1829. He was originally buried in the District of Columbia’s Episcopal cemetery, but his body was later moved to Philadelphia’s Sansom Street Church Cemetery.  ABHS has the personal papers of Staughton and some of the records of Sansom Street Church.

Dec. 7, 1951   The first Baptist Women’s Day of Prayer was held.  This has become an annual event of the Baptist World Alliance.  “The Baptist World Alliance is a global movement of Baptists sharing a common confession of faith in Jesus Christ bonded together by God’s love to support, encourage and strengthen one another while proclaiming and living the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit before a lost and hurting world.”  The Day of Prayer is designed to encourage and celebrate unity in Christ among Baptist women of the world and work towards peace, reconciliation, justice and development through prayer, witness and service. ABHS has the historical records of BWA.

Dec. 6, 1776  The Virginia Assembly, led by Thomas Jefferson, passed a law denying funds for the Episcopal Church. The Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom was written into the state’s law and disestablished the Church of England in Virginia and guaranteed freedom of religion to people of all religious faiths, including Christians of all denominations, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus.   The statute was a notable precursor of the Establishment Clause and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Virginia Assembly dates from the establishment of the House of Burgesses at Jamestown in 1619. It became the General Assembly in 1776 with the ratification of the Virginia Constitution.  ABHS has books and pamphlets on the struggle for religious freedom in colonial times.