First Baptist Church (Knoxville, Tennessee) - The Early Days 1843-1872

The Early Days 1843-1872

When young James C. Moses came to Knoxville in 1838 to work as a printer for the semi-weekly newspaper, The Times, he attended First Presbyterian Church, and for a while directed the choir. When his brother, John, joined him in Knoxville, the young men began to wish for a Baptist church, Neither James nor John had been baptized, but they came from a solid Baptist background in Exeter, New Hampshire.

In 1842 there was no Baptist church in Knoxville. There were Methodist and Presbyterian congregations in this village of about 2,000 people, and out in the country several small Baptist churches met monthly on different farms. Through their friends in New Hampshire, the two young men approached the American Baptist Home Mission Society, and a missionary, Rev. J.A. Bullard, was sent to Knoxville in the fall of 1842.

On January 15, 1843, James and John Moses, with three young ladies and some "borrowed" Baptists from the rural churches, met in a room at the court house to adopt the Articles of Faith and organize a Baptist church. These "borrowed" Baptists agreed to come to town till the new church got started, and then they would go back to their own churches, primarily Third Creek, Beaver Dam and Beaver Ridge churches. Seven days later, January 22, the Baptist Church of Knoxville was constituted and met to hold the first church service. Six days after that, January 28, they had their first baptismal service in the cold Tennessee River near the mouth of First Creek.

First Creek at that time ran along in front of where the Coliseum is now and entered the river down behind Blount Mansion. It has all been covered over by highway now. In a report to the Mission Society, Rev. Bullard wrote: "Thousands of people witnessed the ceremony as they had probably never seen it before. They took positions on the elevated banks of the river, on the tops of homes, and in boats on the river. Three of the persons baptized were students at the East Tennessee University and one was a publisher." James Moses was baptized that day and John, the following May.

The new Baptist church had forty-six members: fifteen white men, eleven white women, eight black men and twelve black women. A letter of thanks was sent to the Baptist church in Exeter, New Hampshire on November 26, 1843, for the gift of a Bible, a hymnal and a communion service. This original church Bible is now in the church office. It was preserved by Miss Katie Roberts, descendent of the Moses family, and returned to First Baptist Church in the 1950s. The Bible is inscribed: "Presented to the Baptist Society of Knoxville, Tennessee by friends in Exeter, New Hampshire."

Rev. Bullard was 32 years old and single when he came to Knoxville. He stayed fourteen months (at a salary of about thirty dollars a month) and then went on to organize a church in Lebanon, Tennessee. The Home Mission Society next appointed Rev. Homer Sears, who was pastor for six years. He came at a difficult time, because many of the "borrowed" members were going back to their own churches. Rev. Sears reported to the Home Mission Society: "It has taken us all of the past year to undo the wrong doing of the preceding year. The prosperity of the church at first was artificial. In town also everything was sweeped up that had ever been in a Baptist church to swell the numbers. The year has been one continual scene of discipline. We have not yet ascertained our entire weakness. Several more of the borrowed members from the county are yet to return."

Rev. Sears estimated that the population of Knoxville was between two and three thousand and later wrote: "A comparatively small part of the community attend worship anywhere. We have five congregations, New and Old School Presbyterians, Protestant and Methodist Episcopal, and Baptist. Attendance at our meeting varies considerably, between 75 to 150."

According to E.E. McCroskey, early church historian, the first Sunday School in any Baptist church in East Tennessee was organized in Knoxville in 1845. Within two or three years there were several Sunday Schools in a number of Baptist churches in the area. By 1848 there were between 100 and 150 children attending Sunday School at the Knoxville Baptist Church. Each Sunday School collected a library, because learning to read was an important part of the Sunday School lesson. The books were largely gifts from northeastern churches, the American Baptist Home Mission Society and individuals. "The lesson began with questions and answers, after which the class read in turn from the Bible. This was followed by a lecture or story from the teacher. Each pupil who could read was given a book to read during the week."

By 1844 the church had 73 regular church members, approved a set of rules and was making plans for a building of its own. They paid $500 for a sixty-foot lot on Gay Street between what is now the Tennessee Theater and the KUB building. The prop­erty was purchased from Wil­liam Swan, recorded October 21, 1844, at the court house. This lot was origi­nally given by James White, founder of Knoxville, to East Tennessee College (prede­cessor of the University of Tennessee). A one-story brick build­ing, 60' x 43', was built for $8,000 by contractor John Garven. The church had a small steeple, full basement and was lit by tallow candles in tin sockets.

The sanctuary of the almost-finished church was lit for the first time on December 4, 1849, for the wedding of Dora P. Moses (sister of James and John) to Joseph H. Walker. During this time the city would periodically appoint nightwatchmen to patrol Gay Street, walking past the Baptist Church from nine PM till daylight, to call out the time and state of weather at each hour. As late as 1849 there was still no regular police force in the city of Knoxville.

Money was a problem for the young church and though the church building was finished in 1850, it was not dedicated, because it was not fully paid for. The church at this time had 70 members, 39 of them black. A slave had to have his owner's permission to be baptized, but then was encouraged to attend church as well as Sabbath School. Since 1845 a Sabbath School for blacks had been quietly in existence at the Knoxville Baptist Church. Over seventy people—men, women, boys and girls—were enrolled and learning to read.

In a letter to the Home Mission Board, Pastor Sears wrote, "Several classes can read very well and have question books and are engaged in the study of the Bible." Later, he wrote again, "The school now has twelve white teachers and seventy-five students, mostly slaves, of whom one-third have already learned to read." Then Pastor Sears wrote about a new development. "A little girl, twelve years of age, who I baptized a few months ago, the daughter of an excellent sister in our church, has for some two months engaged in teaching a little school of colored children every Sabbath afternoon. She has two assistants, girls younger than herself, and about a dozen scholars. They have contrived to get together at the home of one of her assistants while her mother thought she was visiting. She is an unusually intelligent and well educated girl of her age, and has for two years given decided evidence of piety.

"I feel anxious to make her school the start of a permanent school. We are anxious to obtain a library for them. Could you not prevail on someone to send us the 100 volume library of the American Sunday School Union for this new school?" So as early as fifteen years before the Civil War, the Knoxville Baptist Church and a twelve-year-old teacher were quietly educating blacks in Knoxville.

The church schedule appears to have been somewhat different from what we know today. Prayer meetings were held weekly. The regular church service was once a month on Saturday and Sunday. Church communion was on the first Sunday of January, April, July and October. Sunday School was held when there was no preaching and lasted from early Sunday morning till late afternoon. The congregation brought their Sunday dinner with them and had a "social time at noon."

Having a monthly preaching service was likely the result of the fact that Rev. Sears had the responsibility of several other churches in the area. He was pastor at Third Creek Church, Fountainhead, Adair's Creek (now Smithwood) and Third Creek No.2. He also established a church in Tazewell, Tennessee. At times Rev. Sears received no salary and "became threadbare in clothing and in debt for his living." Yet according to records, he "prosecuted his work faithfully under these very trying conditions." Rev. Sears owned a horse to ride to his other churches in the county. Deacon John Smith kindly agreed to board his horse without charge. However, this meant that whenever Rev. Sears wanted to ride, he had to walk a little over five miles (8 km) to the Smith homestead to get his horse.

The Knoxville church had been a member of the Tennessee Association of Baptists since 1843. The Southern Baptist Convention was organized in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, but the Knoxville Baptist Church did not affiliate with the Convention until January 1848. The church had been started by the Northern Convention, and Rev. Sears had been sent by the American Home Mission Society, so for two years the Knoxville Baptist Church stayed with the Northern Convention. Through this period the church received both money and encouragement from the Baptists of New Hampshire.

Rev. Sears resigned in 1850, and the church was without a regular pastor until Dr. Matthew Hillsman came two years later. It was during this period that several women of the church were "tried". Some of the trials lasted a week adjourning each night. The charge, among others, was "lying and abusive language". The judgment was that they should "mutually ask and extend forgiveness". But two of the offending members resigned.

The church was very much in debt, and progress was slow under Dr. Hillsman. In 1856 an effort was made to rent the basement of the church for a secular school, but that did not materialize. At one time the church decided to rent pews, but this plan was unsuccessful and abandoned. One milestone: Gas lights replaced the candles in the church in 1856 when the gas works were constructed in Knoxville.

Fire was an ever-present problem, and fire fighting had been a civic responsibility since 1822, when the Knoxville Fire Company was established. All inhabitants of the town between the ages of fifteen and fifty were required to serve in the Fire Company. Every business was required to have a leather bucket on the premises that would hold at least two gallons of water. The city owned a small fire engine with a large reservoir which was filled by a bucket brigade extending to the creek. Later a cistern was built on the court house lot to hold rain water for use in case of fire.

In 1850 church membership had shrunk to 42, but doubled in the next three years. The year 1854 added only eight new members. This growth was said to be so small because the town was caught in an epidemic of Asiatic cholera and most people who weren't sick left town.

Knoxville had from the first been a trading center, and a farmers' market had been an important activity. In January, 1854, an ambitious new Market House opened and was in use until its removal in 1960.

About this time First Presbyterian Church tore down its building to construct a new one on the same site. For two years, while their new church was being built, First Presbyterian and Knoxville Baptist had services together. Each preacher spoke on alternate Sundays. In 1857 plans were made to have the church singing conducted by a choir, and a "musical director" was employed to train this first choir.

In March 1858 Rev. Hillsman resigned to become pastor of the Trenton, Tennessee, church. Rev. J.T. Wallace came from Richmond, Virginia, to be pastor of the Knoxville church, but stayed only three months. In 1859 George Washington Griffin came from Columbia, Tennessee, to serve as pastor for one year.

On July 4, 1859, Harriet Bailey, "a sister of color," joined the Knoxville church by letter from the African Baptist Church of Macon, Georgia. She was a slave, a fact that is known because free blacks could not change their residence from one state to another. The Baptist and Presbyterian denominations in Tennessee did not allow the formation of separate churches for blacks, but encouraged them to join established churches. The fact that Harriet Bailey came from the African Baptist Church in Georgia indicates that the Georgia Baptists permitted the formation of separate black churches. In Tennessee, only the Methodist church allowed blacks to form their own churches.

In 1860 under Rev. Griffin, the Baptist Church wrote new bylaws and adopted the first church covenant.

Up to the time of the Civil War there was little manufacturing in Knoxville, but by 1860 the city had become a major merchandising and distribution center. Gay Street had become the principal commercial street in the city. At the start of the Civil War there was great tension and disagreement in Knoxville. Many people, especially in the outlying areas, had strong Union sentiment, but the civil government was with the Confederacy.

The state of Tennessee sent 100,000 men to the Confederate Army and 30,000 to the Union Army. Tennessee was the last state to leave the Union and the last state to join the Confederacy. There was intense feeling in Knoxville. Emotion ran so high that one time when the churches printed posters to advertise a "Union Prayer Service" (meaning united between ail the churches in town), Confederate soldiers thought they were praying for the Union and shot up all the posters. All Knoxville pastors, except the rector of St. John's Episcopal Church, spoke out in support of the Confederacy and signed the loyalty oath. The Episcopal rector and many others of strong Union sentiment left town.

Now for the first time the Negro Baptists established a separate church. In the past black and white had services together with the blacks sitting in the balcony. Then, for a while, the blacks had their own service at the Baptist Church with their own preacher on Sunday afternoon. But now they wanted their own church building.

For almost a year, after Rev. Griffin left to take a church in Lebanon, the Baptist Church was without a pastor. Rev. J.V. Iddins came from Washington, D.C., for three months in late 1861. In 1862 thirty-three-year-old Lucien B. Woolfolk, a Kentucky native and graduate of Brown University, accepted as his first pastorate the Baptist Church in Knoxville.

Rev. Woolfolk stayed one year until the church was shut down when, in 1863, as a result of General Ambrose Burnside's victory over General James Longstreet, the Union Army was firmly established in Knoxville. The St. John's rector was reinstated, and his church was the only one allowed to have services. All the other churches in town became storehouses or hospitals for Union soldiers.

When the war ended and the Union Army was through with the Knoxville Baptist Church, they turned it over to a community group who ran a school for freedmen under the direction of R.J. Creswell. The former slaves lived in the basement and had classes upstairs. Soon the agent of the American Home Mission Board demanded that the War Department return the southern church buildings to the people who owned them, and gradually this was done. The U.S. government reimbursed the Baptist Church $1,200 for damages done to their building.

However, this $1,200 had to be used to settle a lawsuit. Before the war, the Knoxville Baptist Church had borrowed $700. Now, years later, the creditor was dead, but his heirs were suing the church for twice that amount - principal plus back interest. The Baptist Church building was gutted and almost a shambles by the time the church membership regained possession. The pews had been given away, but many of them were recovered. John L. Moses traveled to Exeter, New Hampshire, and returned with $800. Once again the Baptists in Exeter came to the church's aid. This money was used to plaster, paint and build a new pulpit.

About this time Captain William Wallace Woodruff, who had been a captain in the Union Army, brought his bride to Knoxville and went to work supporting and reorganizing the Baptist Church. He was a tremendous influence for the next fifty years and a tireless worker for church.

The Home Mission Board sent Missionary Daniel William Phillips to re-establish the Knoxville Baptist Church in 1864. In his report to the Board, Rev. Phillips wrote:

"There has been no Baptist preaching here for nearly a year. There is at present a colored school kept in the Baptist House by a colored Methodist man. Before the rebellion there were in this city two Presbyterian, two Methodist and one Episcopal and one Baptist churches. One of the Methodist churches has wholly disappeared. The other was made a government store and was so loaded that the floor broke down. I gathered together all the Baptists that I could find (Oct. 1864) only some nine or ten male members in all I have thus far preached in the New School Presbyterian Church."

Deacon James C. Moses wrote about this difficult period: "The church was without a pastor or clerk from 1864 to 1866. The membership was scattered and but few could be found remaining in Knoxville who were connected with the church. Religious services were therefore dispensed with, so far as our denomination was concerned, and were not regu­larly resumed till the latter part of 1866."

In 1865 and 1866, when there were no services at the Baptist Church, young people attended Sunday School at St. John's Episcopal Church. But in a very few years the Sunday School of the Baptist Church began to regain its energy and strength. In 1867, during W.W. Woodruff's term as Sunday School Superintendent, membership increased to 250. Shortly thereafter member­ship was recorded as 150 white members and 50 black members. When Thomas L. Moses became Sunday School Superintendent, following Woodruff, enrollment was 700, with average attendance of 500. First Baptist was voted by the State Sunday School Convention as the "Banner Sunday School of the State". Rev. Phillips left after about six months and moved to Nashville, where he founded Roger Williams University.

Dr. Stephen H. Smith, a physician as well as a minister, had married Martha, daughter of Deacon John Smith, and lived in Jonesboro and Mossy Creek before and during the Civil War. In 1866 he agreed to become pastor of the Baptist Church until a regular pastor could be secured. He served for eighteen months.

Knoxville was growing. The first bridge across the Tennessee River was built by the Union forces occupying Knoxville during the Civil War. It was swept away by a great flood in 1867. Four years later a new bridge was opened at the south end of Gay Street. This one was destroyed by a tornado in 1875 and replaced in 1880.

In February, 1868, D.M. Breaker came from Union, South Carolina, to be pastor of the Knoxville Baptist Church. He and his family lived in the church basement. Rev. Breaker resigned after one year, but remained in Knoxville and stayed a member of the church.

In 1868 the church first began its ministry to the deaf. Church minutes record that in April of that year "Four young women from the Deaf and Dumb Asylum were received into the church: Misses Martha A. Gorman, Emma Rutledge, Mary A. Pope and May A. Mangum. A list of questions was written out for them and they were required to sign their names to the answers they had made." The Moses family had a strong interest in the deaf and encouraged the church's participation. Fifty-four years later Mrs. Laura Formwalt would begin giving the sermon in sign to the deaf in the congregation.

Rev. Frank C. Johnson, a former missionary in China, was called to the pastorate in 1869. He was asked to resign six months later because of "a lack of unity". It was this "lack of unity" that resulted in a group of members breaking off to form Second Baptist Church. They asked the previous pastor, Rev. D.M. Breaker, to lead them. Rev. Breaker "proceeded to collect a few members and organized a second church with a membership of twenty five." This was duly reported to the Baptist Association in October 1869. Now, for the first time, on December 27, 1869, the original church was called First Baptist Church to distinguish it from this second Baptist church.

A year later Second Baptist Church decided to discontinue operation and approached First Baptist about reuniting. A meeting was held at the Temperance Hall on the third Sunday of March, 1870 to negotiate a reunion. At the meeting it was resolved "that we will mutually forgive and forget any injuries, real or supposed," and First and Second Baptist became one again. It was also in 1870 that First Baptist, now with a membership of 166, started a special collection for the poor of the church.

That same year First Baptist rented the Caldwell Schoolhouse for six months to establish a mission in North Knoxville. When Col. Charles M. McGhee donated a lot, a chapel was built and called the McGhee Street Mission and later the McGhee Street Baptist Church. This modest start eventually grew to become the Broadway Baptist Church.

For a while First Baptist had certain pews set aside for the exclusive use of individual families. In April 1871 the church declared all seats free to all people without any exclusion privileges, and asked that "church members give special attention to visiting strangers."

The Baptist Church had been built at the back of the church lot, leaving about 25 feet (7.6 m) at the front unoccupied. Gay Street was becoming an active business center and space was in demand. The church decided to build and rent two two-story buildings in front of the church, leaving a passageway between them as entrance to the church. W.W. Woodruff paid for the construction and was to be reimbursed from the profits.

The two storage buildings were each quickly rented for $50 a month. It was a very profitable venture, and Woodruff was promptly repaid. The monies collected were not to be used for regular church expenses, but for benevo­lences. The storage buildings were in use about fourteen years. Then the city decided that this was not actually church business and the income should be taxable. When contested, this decision was reversed.

The 1870s saw the city of Knoxville make two major decisions. For the first time they considered "the propriety of establishing free schools." And the first efforts were made to organize a city hospital. Up until then there had been only a "pest house" for smallpox patients where they could be isolated to protect the community. The city rented four rooms on the second floor of a building at the corner of Broad and Depot streets which served as a hospital for 20 people.

Rev. Joseph L. Lloyd from Alabama was called to serve as pastor of the First Baptist Church in 1870. He was a graduate of the University of Tennessee and had married a Knoxville girl, Mary Ann Henderson. He served for three years. It was a time of healing and growth for the church.

Church records show that on March 15, 1872, Lloyd E. Branson joined First Baptist Church. Mr. Branson is today a well-known portrait artist whose paintings have been displayed in the McClung Collection and at the Knoxville Museum of Art. In 1872 he was traveling around the countryside, staying for a time with prominent families and painting por­traits of family members, as was the custom of the times.