1920
First Baptist Church had 276 members when, in 1873, Jonathan Fleming Bingham Mays came from a church in Jackson, Tennessee, to be pastor. He contributed greatly to the financial organization of the young church. Rev. Mays started the envelope system of giving and record keeping. Heretofore the pastor had been paid by "voluntary subscription", but now a regular salary was established. It was the custom to "call" pastors just for one year. The "recall" at the end of each year was never assured.
On July 12, 1874, the first indoor baptismal service was held at First Baptist Church. This means that for thirty-one years members had been baptized in the river. Bingham Mays, the President of Carson–Newman College, S.W. Tindell, was ordained to preach the gospel in August 1874. This was the first ordination at the church. Rev. Tindell had been engaged in educational and ministerial work in East Tennessee for some time.
Church expenses were still a problem in 1877. With a membership of 319, it was recorded that "137 gave regularly, 34 gave very little and at long intervals, 148 gave nothing." The church took action adopting a resolution requiring every member to contribute weekly not less than five cents, and a committee was appointed to make assessments on each member. The deacons were to have supervision of each case, and decide what each should pay. This was a very unpopular action and was soon rescinded.
Rev. Mays was a remarkable, self-made man. He was a member of the City Board of Education and a trustee of the University of Tennessee. But in 1878 when his health failed, he moved to Florida. He was succeeded by George Boardman Eager, who led the church for two years. Dr. Eager was from a distinguished Baptist family in Mississippi and served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. While in Knoxville, he received his Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of Tennessee.
While pastor at First Baptist, Dr. Eager attended the East Tennessee Baptist General Association and pushed through a controversial measure which let that body sponsor institutes for black ministers at Knoxville and Mossy Creek. It was under Dr. Eager's ministry that the women organized the Earnest Workers Society, giving them a new and stronger participation in the church.
Records of 1879 list John Rountree as choir leader and Mary Rountree as organist. Singing at prayer meeting was led by E.A. Hacicworth.
On April 25, 1879, ten women met at the church, adopting a constitution with by-laws and stating their purpose as "...desiring to do all we can for the Cause of Christ, and realizing that our efficiency will be increased by organization, we do hereby organize ourselves into an association to be known as the Earnest Workers of the First Baptist Church." And they added graciously: "Any gentleman may become a member of this association on condition that he pay a monthly fee of ten cents; this, however, will not entitle him to the privilege of voting." Ladies of the Earnest Workers Society were the housekeepers of the church. One of their first projects was to raise $720 to buy new carpet for the church. The deacons were so proud of this new carpet, they immediately invested in fourteen new spittoons. The group raised money by "dues, fines, private contributions, concerts, lectures, bazaars, self denial, tea parties, strawberry festivals, silk bag collections, oyster suppers, a Chinese entertainment and in other ways."
Their projects included furnishing the pastor's study, buying chairs, cleaning the church, purchasing two baptismal suits, covering pew cushions and getting a fence built around the mission chapel. At one time they had sufficient funds to "consult our husbands about an investment. This we did and loaned the money at interest." So that in 1886 when the second church was built, the Earnest Workers Society purchased furniture for the ladies' parlor and the Sunday School rooms. For the parsonage, they bought a rug, kitchen stove, shades and curtains.
History has left us an amusing account of the Earnest Workers' most successful "Strawberry Festival", which was planned for June 1879 when the strawberries were ripe. "It was one of the most unanimous and popular proceedings the church ever had. It was patronized by all denominations and the public in general. The seats and furniture were removed from the church auditorium for the occasion. "Some features of this entertainment would not be considered entirely orthodox. The 'Post Office' feature was very entertaining, but altogether devoid of any spiritual or helpful influence, though not totally bad.
"A brother contributed a sewing machine and the manner in which this machine was disposed, to the amount of $100, would not be recognized by the courts of the land as altogether legitimate. Yet the festival went on uninterrupted for two days and nights and the church raised $465. A great success."
One year after the Earnest Workers Society organized, in 1880, the Woman's Missionary Society 29 was started. This was largely made up of the same women members, but the emphasis was on foreign and home missions. Meetings were held monthly on Tuesdays. The first year's gifts were $191, of which $17 was given to Foreign Missions and $2 to State Missions. The next year the budget was $202.
This Missionary Society reported at an early meeting that the "Baptist Board has 115 missionaries in the field. Twenty new ones having been sent out last year. In China there are 150,000 people to one missionary. The missionary box will be sent in October and you are asked to contribute money or clothes." Gifts were made to churches in Cuba and China. More than one box of clothes was sent to Rev. J.M. Corn and Rev. W.R. Edwards in Indian Territory, Norman, Oklahoma, as early as 1893.
While primary interest was in missions, many other good works were done by the Society: a communion table was bought for the mission church and gifts made to Carson-Newman College for scholarships and to furnish the parlor of the girls' dormitory. Boxes of clothing and supplies were regularly filled and sent to missionary workers from Dover, Tennessee, to China.
The two women's organizations ran side by side until 1920 when, at the request of the Woman's Missionary Society, the Earnest Workers Society turned over their funds and disbanded.
In 1880, the same year the Woman's Missionary Society organized, Charleton Hines Strickland came from Georgia to be pastor of the church. While in Knoxville Dr. Strickland earned three college degrees: from Carson-Newman College, the University of Tennessee and Southwestern Baptist University in Jackson, Tennessee. Dr. Strickland had joined the Confederate Army at age 16 and was the youngest captain in Longstreet's Dr. Charlton Hines Division which fought in the Battle of Fort Sanders in Knoxville. After the war he taught school in Georgia.
A month after his arrival he attended the Southern Baptist Convention in Lexington, Kentucky. First Baptist Church had not been active in the Convention up to this time. The State Baptist Convention was held at First Baptist in October 1880, the first time it met in East Tennessee. Attendance was large and the delegates were "entertained by the church in good style."
In 1881, the McGhee Street Baptist church in North Knoxville (which was started by First Baptist as a mission Sunday School in 1870) moved to Broad Street, when W.W. Woodruff donated two larger lots. He requested that the church now be called the Calvary Baptist Church, which it was until 1900. At this time the church was renamed Second Baptist Church. Then in 1906 the name changed once again to Broadway Baptist Church, as it is today.
In 1881 the church abolished its practice of calling the pastor every year. Dr. Strickland was extended an indefinite call at the salary of $1,800. The church at this time had 447 members: 266 women and 181 men. In 1882 the church recorded an income of $6,164.84. Dr. Strickland's salary was raised to $2,400 in an effort to hold him in Knoxville. But he preached a "Goodbye Sermon" in 1883, when he accepted the call of Nashville's First Baptist Church, and closed with the sentence: "It is better for me to go away when you want me to stay than to have to stay when you want me to go."
By 1882 the church realized it had outgrown its original building, and plans were made to build a new church on the same Gay Street property. First Presbyterian Church offered to share their sanctuary during the construction (as the Baptist church had done for them years earlier), but the church decided to rent the Opera House for Sunday services. Attendance fell sharply because many of the Baptists didn't feel they could worship in a theater.
Five years later the new church was finished, paid for and dedicated. Construction, which was completed by contractor J.A. Galyon in two years, was overseen by church member John McCoy; and the amazing financial success was largely due to Capt. W.W. Woodruff's pledge that "for every dollar you receive from all other sources, I will give another."
The new church was made of brick and marble and cost $30,000. The sanctuary seated 850. It was Gothic style with a tower and spire on the northwest corner that rose 176 feet (54 m) in the air, This steeple held a bell that rang with "thunderous tones that would rattle the windows in the downtown business district." There were smaller spires on the other corners of the building, and two Gay Street entrances.
Behind a small, brass, movable pulpit was a baptistery of white marble. Memorial windows on the north side of the sanctuary honored the Moses brothers who had founded the church. A church slogan, widely used in publications at this time, was: "In the Center of the City with the Savior." At the dedication on April 8, 1888, a quartet sang, and Albert Van Gilder was organist. The organ in the new church was placed in a chamber immediately over the pulpit and baptistery and rose to an elevation of twenty-four feet. Seventy-five of the 1,767 pipes were "displayed to view, and their arrangement was of the most pleasing character."
During the construction Eugene A. Taylor was pastor of First Baptist Church. He was young, handsome, athletic and highly educated. Rev. Taylor had traveled in Europe and Palestine. He had a strong talent for organization and greatly improved the management of the church. Church membership increased from 400 to 600 under Rev. Taylor. Sunday school added 100 new members.
W.W. Woodruff said of Rev. Taylor: "His mental qualities were of the highest order. His sermons were short, less than twenty-five minutes...enjoyed and appreciated." Records of 1886 list Frank Nelson as church organist. Mr. Nelson later served as organist for St. John's Episcopal Church for fifty years. The following year Frank Barker agreed to lead the singing on Sundays and "furnish all singers for eight dollars and a half." The church also voted to purchase a course of music lessons for J.W. Hicks, who was serving as cornetist.
On April 6, 1887, in the partly finished new church building, Rev. Taylor conducted funeral services for John L. Moses, church founder.
Many changes were going on in the growing city of Knoxville. In 1882 houses were numbered for the first time, and free mail delivery started the next year. Electric street lights appeared in 1885, and telephones were first available. By 1890 electric cars (street cars) were clanging down the streets of Knoxville. Between 1880 and 1910 the population of Knoxville grew from under ten thousand to almost twenty-seven thousand. The city had established itself as one of the major wholesale and distribution centers of the South.
In 1888 First Baptist began collecting money to establish a mission in the Ninth Ward District, but it was three years later that the Asylum Street Baptist Mission was actually opened. W.W. Woodruff again gave the new mission property and challenged them to a matching funds program to get their building constructed. Four years later, the new church, called Centennial Baptist Church, was independent. They called Rev. J.K. Pace as pastor and boasted a membership of ninety-two. In 1905, the church's name was changed to Deadrick Avenue Baptist Church.
Twenty-nine-year-old Carter Helm Jones came as pastor to First Baptist in 1889. He was a well-educated, eloquent and successful preacher. While pastor in Knoxville, he preached the annual sermon at the Southern Baptist Convention, being the youngest man up to that time so honored.
Years later, in 1939, Rev. Jones preached in Knoxville at the invitation of Dr. F.F. Brown. Still eloquent and thoughtful at age seventy, Rev. Jones is remembered for his statement, "Too many people are reading by electric light and thinking by candle light."
In 1893 Robert Roland Acree became pastor for a period of six years. He was instrumental in publishing a yearbook with a directory, the revised Church Covenant, Constitution and Declaration of Faith.
As early as 1874 the young men of the church had a "debating society" and ten years later were conducting a "young men's prayer meeting." But under Rev. Acree the first youth organizations were really established. There was a Baptist Young People's Union, a Girl's Aid Society and in 1898 Sunbeams for boys and girls under fifteen.
Montraville Walker Egerton, educated in law at the University of North Carolina, was ordained as a Baptist minister when he was thirty years old. Three years later, in 1899, he was called to Knoxville's First Baptist Church. He found a church in financial trouble. Insurance on the building had been reduced, the pastor's salary had been cut and the paid quartet eliminated. Within a year these problems were solved and regular funding restored.
A financial statement for the year 1903 reports: Expenses $4,594.43. Receipts $4,588.40. Balance on hand $.07!
In 1904 Rev. Egerton suffered a major stroke and died a year later at age 37. W.W. Woodruff called him "Our most beloved Pastor."
From January 1900 to May 1905, the church published a monthly newsletter called "First Baptist Visitor." It contained the church directory, officers, announcements, marriages, deaths and current information about church activities. A column on First Baptist's history by E.E. McCroskey, who was Church Clerk, has provided much of the information in this article.
months and then returned to Texas. A contemporary remarked, "Church and pastor parted without unkind feelings on either side. His heart was in Texas."
Joseph Judson Taylor, educated at the University of Virginia and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, came in 1907 to be pastor for seven years, which was the longest service of any pastor to this time. He resigned in 1914 to take the First Baptist Church of Savannah, Georgia.
In 1907 First Baptist was considering organizing a mission Sunday School at either Circle Park or East Mabry Street. Two years later the decision was made and a lot purchased at the corner of 12th and Cornell to establish what would be called Calvary Mission. In 1911 this mission became Calvary Baptist Church, and has grown with energy and purpose to become the strong congregation now located on Kingston Pike.
Leonard Gaston Broughton became pastor in 1915, during World War I. He came from a church in London, England, and felt strongly about the "righteousness of the Allied cause." Worship services at First Baptist began to take on the flavor of patriotic rallies. Dr. Broughton was a medical doctor practicing in North Carolina when he felt called to the ministry. He was a vigorous and articulate preacher. Under Rev. Broughton there was new interest in involving the entire church membership in Sunday School, and by 1916 Sunday School enrollment was 1,136.
The church bulletin of April 18, 1915, first mentions the Young Peoples' Union. There had been an earlier organization (1874) by this same name for young men of the church. But now the group was restructured and called the Baptist Young Peoples' Union and later, Training Union. Training Union was a vital part of the church's program through the years until 1972. Dr. Broughton taught an interdenominational Bible class on Friday nights at the church. This large class drew people from all across the city. An active men's group was organized at First Baptist and called the Laymen's Missionary Movement. Ben Morton, J.T. Henderson and J.H. Anderson were leaders in this group. Mr. Anderson personally supported six missionaries overseas. He gave more than a million dollars to the church, mostly for missions.
At this time E.A. Hackworth is mentioned again and again as being an outstanding Sunday School teacher at First Baptist. Mr. Hackworth, a cobbler by trade, started teaching in 1871 and for 45 years taught "boys of tender ages." Every young man in his classes joined the church, and one became a preacher. Church records say, "This humble shoemaker was a mighty warrior in the Band of Christian Soldiers."
A banquet honoring Dr. Broughton's first year as pastor of First Baptist turned into something of a Chamber of Commerce affair. With the mayor, two commissioners and the city recorder all Baptists, it was recognized that the "Baptist denomination predominates in Knoxville." At the banquet Dr. Broughton predicted great prosperity coming to the South and is quoted in the newspaper as saying, "I believe the time will come when to become rich and die rich will be a crime."
J. Oscar Miller is listed as Assistant to Pastor Broughton, General Secretary and Director of Music in 1916 and was obviously a busy man with the following responsibilities: "Visitation, Ways and Means Committee, Treasurer, missionary and benevolent offering, Sunday School music, directing the orchestra and choir and assisting Superintendent."
Two bits of history: In 1915 electric lights were installed at First Baptist. 1916 was the last year the church had an orchestra.
Knoxville was growing as a city. In 1917 the city annexed Lonsdale, Mountain View, Park City and Oakwood as well as large unincorporated areas such as South Knoxville and Sequoyah Hills. This increased the area of the city from four to twenty-six square miles. The census of 1920 showed that Knoxville's population had more than doubled in ten years.
First Baptist Church on Gay Street was in the heart of the city. Gay Street was like a shoestring business district with residences just one block away on either side. All of the hotels were on Gay Street. All of the streetcars terminated at the corner just fifty feet from the church. These street cars ran five miles (8 km) out into the country in every direction.
The Woman's Missionary Society in 1917 reported offerings of $7,500 during the year, excelling all other such societies in the state. The women were making plans to divide the Society into "circles" rather than have one general meeting. Nine years earlier, in 1908, the women had organized the Royal Ambassadors. In 1918 they began the Girls' Auxiliary.
By 1919 Professor C.S. Cornell was listed as Music Director. Rev. Frederick Stern was Assistant Pastor, and Mrs. Charles Eppes, organist. Church budget was recorded at over $26,000.
Five hundred new hymnals were ordered for $150, and the church bulletin scolded the congregation for carrying them home. Professor Cornell was a lively and popular song leader, but regretted that the books were being "borrowed" at a rate of ten every Sunday. The bulletin says, "If you want one, the secretary will be glad to sell you one for thirty-five cents, but don't take one home unless you buy it. It's terrible to be losing the books before they are even paid for!"
First Baptist now had over 1,115 members and was beginning to outgrow its building. Sunday School classes were being held in various buildings up and down Gay Street. They were even using two army tents pitched behind the church building.
Records show that: Four classes met in the Board of Commerce. Three classes met in the Draughon's Business College. One met on West Hill Avenue in a residence. One met in the Power and Light Building. One met in an office on Market Street. One met in the theater. One met in the baptismal room of the church. Three met in the balcony of the church.
Dr. Broughton left First Baptist in 1920 to become pastor of the Grove Avenue Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia.
Read more about this topic: First Baptist Church (Knoxville, Tennessee), The Young Years 1873