Mount Zion Baptist Church | |
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38°51′12.45″N77°5′17.52″W / 38.8534583°N 77.0882000°W | |
Location | 3500 South 19th Street, Arlington, Virginia 22204 |
Country | United States |
Denomination | Baptist |
Website | www |
History | |
Former name(s) | The Old Bell Church |
Founded | 1866 |
Founder(s) | Rev. Dr. Robert S. Laws |
Architecture | |
Functional status | Active |
Architect(s) | Romulus Cornelius Archer, Jr. (1944) FormDesign (2012) |
Years built | 1944 |
Clergy | |
Pastor(s) | Interim pastor Elder Donald Hayes |
Mount Zion Baptist Church, established in 1866, is the oldest African American church in Arlington, Virginia. [1] [2] The church is a member of the National Baptist Convention USA and the Progressive National Baptist Convention. [3]
In 1865, the US Congress established Freedmen's Bureau to administer various camps to house formerly enslaved African Americans, including Freedman's Village, a site on General Robert E. Lee former estate in Arlington, Virginia. The village comprised approximately 50 story-and-a-half homes, divided in the middle to accommodate two families, an industrial school for education in various trades, a school for children and two places of worship. [4] Harper's Weekly reported the village also included a hospital, a "home" for the aged, and other public buildings. [5]
Two churches were founded in Freedman's Village in 1866: the Little Zion Methodist Church and the Old Bell Baptist Church. The Little Zion Methodist Church would later be renamed Lomax African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. [6] The membership of the Old Bell Church grew and the congregation split into two: Mount Zion Baptist Church and Mount Olive Baptist Church. [7]
Mount Zion Baptist Church has worshiped in four permanent locations, surviving two forced relocations mandated by the federal government. [1] The first location was in Freedman's Village, on the Lee Custis estate, land known today as Arlington National Cemetery. The federal government eventually closed Freedman's Village. In the mid-1880s, Mount Zion Baptist Church relocated and built a two-story brick building with a marble front on Mount Vernon Avenue (present day Arlington Ridge Road). In 1930, a new church was built on Arlington Ridge Road, which the federal government condemned in 1942 for land to build the Pentagon. The fourth and current location was on South 19th Street in Arlington. Architect Romulus C. Archer, Jr., the second African American architect to be licensed in Washington, D.C., designed the church building. [6] [8]
Mount Zion Baptist Church continues into the twenty-first century having been led by a series of senior pastors. [2] [9] [10]
Robert Simon Laws was born ca. 1837 on Wood Farm Plantation in Middlesex County, Virginia as an enslaved person. [11] At some point, Robert was sold to Richard H. Lynch of Washington County, Virginia who published a $100 reward in 1863 for the return of a runaway slave, 24-year-old Robert Laws, who was described as "5 feet 7 inches high and weighs about 175 pounds" and likely headed to Middlesex County, Virginia. [12]
Laws eventually traveled and settled in Washington, DC. In 1866, he and Patsey A. Williams married in Washington, DC. [13]
Laws was pastor of the Old Bell Church at Freedman's Village, subsequently called Mount Zion Baptist Church, from 1866 to 1875. In 1866, he received 90 persons into the church. [6] [14] In 1875 the Mount Zion Church building collapsed during repairs. [6] Once new repairs were completed on the church, a new cornerstone was laid on Sunday, October 10, 1875, at a ceremony led by the abolitionist Rev. William Troy, of Richmond, Virginia and Rev. Laws. [15]
From 1875 to 1891, Laws served as pastor of the Virginia Avenue Baptist (Colored) Church, later renamed Friendship Baptist Church in Washington, DC. [16]
Rev. Matthews was born in 1850 in Fredericksburg, Virginia. His wife was Lucretia Payne. [17] He served as the second senior pastor for Mount Zion Baptist Church from 1875 – 1890. He presented his ministerial credential to the Alexandria (VA) court in 1884 and was granted license to perform marriage ceremonies. [18] Rev. Matthews officiated the first church wedding at Mount Zion. [2]
Rev. Matthews left Mount Zion in 1890 and pastored three additional local churches. He led Mount Salvation Baptist Church in Halls Hill starting in 1890. [19] He also led Bethlehem Baptist Church in Anacostia, Washington DC from 1892 until his passing in 1919 and First Baptist Church of Vienna, Virginia from 1908 – 1918. [20]
Rev. Edward Roland Jackson was born ca. 1858 in Yorktown, Virginia. His wife was Susie Franklin. In 1891, he graduated from the Howard University Theological Department. [21] He was ordained into ministry by the Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. [22] Rev. Jackson led Mount Zion Baptist Church from 1890 to 1903. During this time, he represented the church in meetings with other African American ministers in the Washington metropolitan area. [23] In 1898, he also "filled the pulpit" at Zion Baptist Church in Lottsburg, Virginia. [24] [25] [26] [27]
Rev. Charles Fox was born ca. 1872 in Virginia. His wife was Lucy Barber. He served as the fourth senior pastor for Mount Zion Baptist Church for six months in 1903. [10] From 1918 to 1951, Rev. Fox was senior pastor of Mount Horeb Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. [28]
Rev. Abraham Garnett Gordon was born in 1862 in Orange County, Virginia. His wife was Mary Stewart. He served as the fifth pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church from 1904 – 1906. [10] His tenure was cut short from injuries sustained in a "trolley car accident below [Arlington's] Clark Street Station." [10] Rev. Gordon returned to Gordonsville, Virginia in Orange County and made brooms, which were noted for "being of superior quality and make." [29] Rev. Gordon eventually employed six persons. [29] Later he was senior pastor of Beulah Baptist Church in Rixeyville, Virginia from 1925 until he passed in 1927. [30]
Rev. Frank Wood Graham was born ca. 1868 in Alcorn, Mississippi. His wife was Edna Witherspoon. [31] Rev. Graham was the sixth pastor and led Mount Zion Baptist Church from 1908 to 1914. While serving as pastor, Rev. Graham was also a clerk at the US Department of the Treasury and took in boarders, [32] including Julia T. Hammonds, who received a US patent for an apparatus for holding yarn skeins. [33] Rev. Graham died in 1914 while pastor at Mount Zion Baptist Church. [34] [35]
Other Mount Zion Baptist Church pastors have included: [2]
Mount Zion Baptist Church was designated a historic landmark in 1986, with a marker placed on the property on 17 September 1986 by the Arlington Historical Landmark Review Board. The marker noted the church's founding in Freedman's Village and status as the oldest African American congregation in Arlington, Virginia. [36]
Through the Years, a play written and directed by Louise L. Gray, dramatized the history of Mount Zion Baptist Church, from its founding in Freedman's Village through major milestones. The play was first performed as a church centennial pageant in 1966 [2] and then updated and performed in 1986 and 1993. [37]
Church member Mrs. Ruby Jones was crowned "Miss Ebony" in 1962 for raising more than $2,000 at Mount Zion Baptist Church in an Ebony Magazine subscription campaign. [38]
Green Clay Smith was a United States soldier and politician. Elected to the Kentucky state house before the American Civil War, he was commissioned as a Union officer when he volunteered, advancing to the rank of brigadier general before he resigned to go to Congress. He was promoted to major general by brevet on March 13, 1865. He was elected to the US Congress from Kentucky in 1862, representing the Unionist Party and serving until 1866.
Wallace Augustus Rayfield (1874–1941), was an American architect and educator. He was the second formally educated practicing African American architect in the United States.
Gardner Calvin Taylor was an American Baptist preacher. He became known as "the dean of American preaching".
Mount Zion Baptist Church or Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church or variations may refer to:
Since 1937, the United States presidential inauguration has included one or more prayers given by members of the clergy. Since 1933 an associated prayer service either public or private attended by the president-elect has often taken place on the morning of the day. At times a major public or broadcast prayer service takes place after the main ceremony most recently on the next day.
Luke E. Torian is an American politician. Since 2010 he has served in the Virginia House of Delegates, representing the 24th district in the Prince William County suburbs of Washington, D.C. He is a member of the Democratic Party.
Leonard N. Smith was the senior pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Arlington, Virginia, with a congregation exceeding 2,000. Mount Zion Baptist Church, founded in 1866, is the oldest Black congregation in Arlington, Virginia.
Nauck is a neighborhood in the southern part of Arlington County, Virginia, known locally as Green Valley. It is bordered by Four Mile Run and Shirlington to the south, Douglas Park to the west, I-395 to the east, and Columbia Heights and the Army-Navy Country Club to the north. The southeastern corner of the neighborhood borders the City of Alexandria.
The Reverend William Troy was a Baptist minister and writer associated with the Underground Railroad.
John Jasper was an ex-slave who became a Baptist minister and noted public speaker for Christianity after the American Civil War.
Romulus Cornelius Archer Jr. was an American architect. An African American, he is credited with designing Virginia University of Lynchburg in Lynchburg, Virginia and Saint Paul African Union Methodist Church in Washington D.C. Both are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Jeremiah Asher was an American cleric who was responsible for the placement of African-American chaplains in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He became the first African-American chaplain to die while in active U.S. military service.
William Gibbons, was a formerly enslaved servant, who became a highly successful Baptist minister in Charlottesville and Washington, D.C. He was married to Isabella Gibbons.
Rev. John E. Price was an elder and minister of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. He was a minister for around 50 years. He was the founder and president of the Garnet Equal Rights League at Harrisburg. He wrote hymns and was an editor for the Zion Church Advocate and, with William H. Day, the Zion Church Herald and Outlook, the first paper of the AME Zion Church. Day was a minister, abolitionist, and educator.
Rev. Robert Henry Robinson (1824–1909), was an American minister, educator, and an activist for the rights of African Americans during the Antebellum period in Arlington, Virginia. He was born into slavery, but through the negotiation by his grandmother, Caroline Branham, he was freed at age 21 after an eleven-year apprenticeship. He was a minister at Roberts Chapel, an African Methodist Episcopal Church. He established a night school and debate team for black freedman. The Robert H. Robinson Library was named in his honor.
William Syphax was born into slavery but manumitted when he was about one year old, along with his mother Maria Carter Syphax and sister. As a young man, he became a U.S. government civil servant in Republican administrations, and built a network in the capital city.
Rev. Dr. Robert Simon Laws, a formerly enslaved person and Howard University graduate, founded two African American Baptist churches in the 19th century that have active congregations in the 21st century.
Rev. Chasteen C. Stumm (1848–1895) was an American minister, teacher, journalist, editor, and newspaper publisher. He was from Kentucky, and also lived in Tennessee, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
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