First African Baptist Church | |
Location | 264-272 E. Short St., Lexington, Kentucky |
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Coordinates | 38°2′38.1″N84°29′34.1″W / 38.043917°N 84.492806°W |
Area | 0.2 acres (0.081 ha) |
Built | 1856 |
Architectural style | Italianate, Collegiate Tudor |
NRHP reference No. | 86000854 [1] |
Added to NRHP | April 24, 1986 |
First African Baptist Church is a Baptist church at 264-272 E. Short Street in Lexington, Kentucky. The congregation was founded c. 1790 by Peter Durrett and his wife, slaves who came to Kentucky with their master, Rev. Joseph Craig, in 1781 with "The Travelling Church" of Baptists from Spotsylvania, Virginia.
First African Baptist of Lexington is the oldest black Baptist church in Kentucky and the third oldest in the United States; it is the oldest black congregation west of the Allegheny Mountains. In 1850 under its second pastor, it had more than 1,800 members, the largest congregation of any in the state. The nineteenth-century Italianate church was constructed in 1856; by 1861 the congregation at this building numbered 2,223 members. The church was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. Today the first African Baptist congregation worships at a newer church at 635 Price Road.
Peter Durrett [2] was born into slavery on the plantation of his white father and master, Captain Duerrett of Caroline County, Virginia. [3] As a young man of 25, he converted to the Baptist faith and married an enslaved woman who lived on Rev. Joseph Craig's plantation. Peter probably accompanied frontier guide Capt. William Ellis to the Kentucky district in 1779 scouting the subsequent Travelling Church migration. [4] After their return and upon learning that his wife's master intended to so migrate, Peter asked for help from Duerrett, who traded him to Craig so the couple could stay together. [5]
Durrett and his wife migrated in 1781 with their master and others of the largely Baptist Travelling Church from Spotsylvania, Virginia, led by Joseph's older brother Rev. Lewis Craig. Because Durrett helped the military leader, Captain William Ellis, guide the several hundred migrants and their slaves on the arduous 600-mile journey through the Appalachian Mountains, he was known as Old Captain after the trip. [4] By 1784 Old Captain and his wife were members of a Separatist Baptist church at Boone's Creek, where Joseph Craig was pastor.
Soon after, Peter Durrett and his wife got permission from Craig to be hired out and moved to Lexington. There they hired themselves to the pioneer John Maxwell, who let them build a cabin on his property at Maxwell Spring in Lexington. This is where Duerrett began preaching to fellow slaves. The 19th-century religious historian Robert Hamilton Bishop noted that Mrs. Durrett was integral to forming the first congregation:
His wife was also particularly active in providing accommodations for the people, and in encouraging them to be in earnest about the things which belonged to their everlasting peace. [5]
Durrett applied to the local Baptist association for ordination, accompanied by numerous people seeking baptism. He had hesitated to baptize them without ordination. The association did not ordain Durrett, but "directed him to go on in the name of their common Master." Durrett began to baptize persons he believed ready. [5]
Durrett and his wife gathered about 50 congregants, most of whom he baptized. About 1790, the members united as the First African Church (now known as the Historic Pleasant Green Baptist Church in Lexington), [6] and Durrett began to administer the Lord's Supper. [5] This is the oldest black Baptist church in Kentucky and the third oldest in the United States. [2] [3] It is also the oldest black church west of the Allegheny Mountains. [7] Its early congregants were slaves and free blacks from the Lexington area. The congregation bought its first property in 1815. [3] In 1816 it started a religious school, which continued with lay teachers and classes in various locations. [5]
The congregation's first deed for land was dated in July 1820, for property purchased by the trustees: Rolla Blue, William Gist, Solomon Walker, and James Pullock, all free men of color. [3] In July 1822 by written covenant, the church was admitted to fellowship by the First Baptist Church of Lexington (a white congregation). [8] Durrett lived until 1823, when he was said to be near 90. His congregation then numbered near 300. [3] [5]
Durrett was succeeded in 1823 by Rev. London Ferrill, who was appointed preacher by the Lexington city trustees. A former slave from Hanover County, Virginia, he was freed as a young man by his unmarried master's sister, who inherited his estate and named the infant. (He was likely his first master's son, as he is believed to have been of mixed race and was given a distinguishing name by his master's sister.) [9] [10] Although not formally educated, Ferrill was a powerful preacher; he worked as a skilled carpenter. He and his wife migrated to Kentucky and settled in Lexington. [10] He was ordained as a preacher by the First Baptist Church (majority white) before being called to the First African Baptist Church, and was a leader among both the white and black communities. [3]
Ferrill served nearly 31 years. After his appointment, his church was received into the Elkhorn Association of the Baptist Church. [8] [10] With the continuing growth of Lexington, the First African Baptist congregation attracted many new members, mostly enslaved, but also free blacks. In 1833 the church purchased the former Old Methodist Meeting House and met there for some years. Ferrill led the congregational growth from 280 to 1,820 members by 1850, when it was the largest church in Kentucky, black or white. [3]
During the cholera epidemic of 1833, Ferrill was one of three clergy who stayed in the city to care for people; his own wife died during the crisis. [8] He was said to marry slaves with the words: "united until death or distance did them part," which reflected the years of many slaves being sold from the Upper South to the Deep South. [8] Louisville was a major shipping point for slaves being transported down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.
In 1854 Ferrill died suddenly of a heart attack. His funeral procession of nearly 5,000 persons to his burial at the Old Episcopal Burying Ground of Christ Church was said to be the largest in Lexington after that of the statesman Henry Clay two years before. [7] Ferrill was the only black to be buried there.
In 1856 First African Baptist completed their new building, designed in the popular Italianate style with large, arched windows. By the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861, the congregation numbered 2,223. [8]
After the war, together with most other black Baptist churches, the congregation withdrew from the Elkhorn Baptist Association, as they wanted to be independent of white supervision. First African Baptist soon joined a state association of black Baptist congregations established after the war. Today the congregation is part of the National Baptist Convention, USA, the largest association of African-American Baptists.
In 1987, the First African Baptist congregation sold its historic building downtown to the nearby Central Christian Church, which has used it as a childcare center. They are considering sale of the historic structure. The First African Baptist congregation moved in the 1980s to a new facility at 465 Price Road. [7]
Lexington is a consolidated city coterminous with, and the county seat of, Fayette County, Kentucky, United States. As of the 2020 census the city's population was 322,570, making it the second-most populous city in Kentucky, and the 60th-most populous city in the United States. By land area, it is the country's 30th-largest city.
Elijah Craig was an American Baptist preacher, who became an educator and capitalist entrepreneur in the area of Virginia that later became the state of Kentucky. He has sometimes, although rather dubiously, been credited with the invention of bourbon whiskey.
John Taylor (1752–1833) was a pioneer Baptist preacher, religious writer, frontier historian and planter in north and central Kentucky. His two histories of early Baptist churches in Kentucky provide insight into the frontier society of the early decades of the 19th century. His 1820 pamphlet entitled "Thoughts on Missions" put him at the center of the controversy within frontier Baptist congregations about supporting mission societies. In buying and selling land on the frontier, Taylor acquired 2,000 acres (8.1 km2) and 20 African-American slaves by the end of the first decade of the 19th century, thus entering the planter class.
The black church is the faith and body of Christian denominations and congregations in the United States that predominantly minister to, and are also led by African Americans, as well as these churches' collective traditions and members. The term "black church" may also refer to individual congregations, including in traditionally white-led denominations.
The Episcopal Burying Ground and Chapel is located at 251 East Third Street, in Lexington, Kentucky. The land was purchased in 1832 by Christ Church as a burial ground for its parishioners. The cemetery became extremely important during the 1833 cholera epidemic, during which one-third of the congregation died.
First African Baptist Church, located in Savannah, Georgia, claims to be derived from the first black Baptist congregation in North America. While it was not officially organized until 1788, it grew from members who founded a congregation in 1773. Its claim of "first" is contested by the Silver Bluff Baptist Church, Aiken County, South Carolina (1773), and the First Baptist Church of Petersburg, Virginia, whose congregation officially organized in 1774.
Leonard Black was born a slave in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and was separated from his family by the age of six. He escaped after 20 years of slavery. In 1847 he wrote The Life and Sufferings of Leonard Black: A Fugitive from Slavery. With encouragement and support, he became a Baptist minister, preaching in Boston, Providence, and Nantucket before becoming minister of First Baptist Church in Petersburg, Virginia.
Robert Hamilton Bishop was a Scottish-American educator and Presbyterian minister who became the first president of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. A professor of history and political science, he wrote about the history of the early churches in the United States, as well as theology.
The Silver Bluff Baptist Church was founded between 1774-1775 in Beech Island, South Carolina, by several enslaved African Americans who organized under elder David George.
Toliver Craig Sr. was an 18th-century American frontiersman and militia officer. An early settler and landowner near present-day Lexington, Kentucky, he was one of the defenders of the early fort of Bryan Station during the American Revolutionary War. It was attacked by the British and Shawnee on August 15, 1782.
First Baptist Church was the first Baptist church in Petersburg, Virginia; one of the first African-American Baptist congregations in the United States, and one of the oldest black churches in the nation. It established one of the first local schools for black children in the nation.
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The history of the Baptist movement in the United States state of Kentucky begins around 1775, when a few Baptist preachers visited from Virginia. Virginians John Taylor, Joseph Reading, and Lewis Lunsford all visited in 1779, but returned to Virginia. Baptists began to settle around 1781, the first Baptist congregation of 18 people being left by John Garrard. Rev. Lewis Craig led several hundred people of "The Travelling Church", including several preachers, to Gilbert's Creek from Spotsylvania County, Virginia, arriving the first week of December 1781. Cedar Fork Church was founded in 1782.
Peter Durrett was an enslaved Baptist preacher, who with his wife founded the First African Baptist Church of Lexington, Kentucky by 1790. By his death, the congregation totaled nearly 300 persons. It is the first black congregation west of the Allegheny Mountains, the first black Baptist congregation in Kentucky, and the third oldest black congregation in the United States. Its historic church was built in 1856 under the third pastor and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
George Washington Dupee was a former slave who became a Baptist leader in Kentucky, United States.
London Ferrill, also spelled Ferrell, was a former enslaved man and carpenter from Virginia who became the second preacher of the First African Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky, serving from 1823 to 1854. During his 31 years of service, Ferrill attracted and baptized many new members in the growing region; by 1850, the church had 1,820 members and was the largest of any congregation in the state, black or white.
The Travelling Church was a large group of pioneering settlers in the late 1700s that emigrated from Spotsylvania County, Virginia, to the Kentucky District of Virginia. It was the largest group that migrated to the area in a single movement. The group was led by the Reverend Lewis Craig, one of three pastor sons of Toliver Craig Sr., and its core was his Baptist congregation. The group of about 600 people arrived at Gilbert's Creek, Kentucky, in December 1781. Other preachers in the Travelling Church were Lewis Craig's younger brother Rev. Joseph Craig and his beloved slave Peter Durrett, who later became a pioneering black minister in Lexington, Kentucky. Lewis Craig's other brother who was a minister, Rev. Elijah Craig, did not come with the rest of the Church, as he remained for a while in Virginia to help James Madison establish constitutional religious liberty assurances before joining the group later. The group's pioneering members were to found many churches, settlements, and other institutions that continue to this day.
MatthewCampbell, or Madison Campbell, was a Baptist preacher in Richmond, Kentucky. He was a local religious and political leader and helped organize a number of churches.
Charles Henry Parrish was a minister and educator in Lexington and Louisville, Kentucky. He was the pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Louisville from 1886 until his death in 1931. He was a professor and officer at Simmons College, and then served as the president of the Eckstein Institute from 1890 to 1912 and then of Simmons College from 1918 to 1931. His wife, Mary Virginia Cook Parrish and son, Charles H. Parrish Jr., were also noted educators.