The Nashville globe. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1906-193?, 1913-09-26

slaves had to get passes OF written
excuses to be absent, especially on
Sunday nights or any other nights,
as night services were more largely
attended. Everybody was married
on Sunday night, while the baptiz-
ings usually took place on Saturday"
1t appears from Sister Seay's well
preserved memory that up to this
time, the beginning of Brother Dick
Ham and Brother Nelson Merry's
churches, that the prevailing relig-
ion among the Negroes was Metho-
dist, Presbyterian and Congregation
al, but with the advent of the two
churches, the Dick Ham Church and
the Nelson Merry Church, the Mis-
sionary Baptists began to grow
among the Negroes and within a
few years they became the prevail
ing denomination. So before the
time Brother Nelson Merry was an
ordained minister, Baptists had
reached the ascendency.
Mrs. Nellie Seay was reared as a
Presbyterian; she was the youngest
of nine children and while she was
reared by a Presbyterian family and
was compelled to take these children
to church and Sunday-school each
Sunday, when she protested religion
she became a Baptist. And then, too,
notwithstanding from her converse
ton she attended Brother Dick
Hams Church when she united she
joined the Nelson Merry congrega-
ton. 1t appears from Mrs. Seay's
statement that after these two
churches were well organized and
under way, the white people adj
vised and encouraged al of their
slaves who protested religion to con-
meet themselves with the colored
congregations. 1t is evident that
all of the colored people who be-
longed to any of the white Baptist
churches were given their letters or
transferred and allowed to unite with
the Nelson Merry congregation.
Mrs. Seay remembers the ordina-
ton OF the Rev. Nelson Merry and
the amount of comment that was
brought not only among the colored
but among the whites, as up to this
time such thing had never been
known in Nashville-white preachers
ordaining a Negro minister. 1t is
therefore supposed that since no rec
ord of Dick Hams ordination has been
found and no one living remembers
when he was ordained or where, the
question remains open to debate,
and while it is clearly evident from
three of the oldest living people in
the city that his congregation is the
older, it is not regarded by those Of
later years as orthodox. 1t is
stated that a few of the colored peo-
pie remained with the white church.
es until after the war and only few
of them knew or took any part in the
controversy that arose between the
Hard-Shell and Missionary Baptists,
Mrs. Seay having no part whatever
in it. Sister Seay remembers, too,
that in the early sixties there was a
colored congregation Of Methodists
that worshipped somewhere down in
Sulphur Spring Bottom. They were
known as the African Methodist
Church, but in reality 1t was part
of the Southern Methodist, looked
after and cared for by the McKen'
dree Congregation. A Rev. Mr..
Carr, white preacher, acted as
their pastor.
When Mrs Seay was asked as to
some Of the people who were promi-
nent in church work between 1S47
and 1863, she did not hesitate to
give such names as JEFF Lytton, Dea-
con John White, Deacon Daniel
Lapsley, Jerry Hope, Sister Grace
Buchanan, Sister Winnie Woods and
Brother Sam Woods. These last
two named persons we're very old.
Then there were Sister Aisle Tri-
bune, Lewis Butler, Mrs. Mile But
Ter and Mrs. Nellie Seay. 1t is also
learned from Sister Seay that
the present church and foun'
dation of the building on Pearl
Street so often referred to
as the First Baptist Church ever
built in Nashville is not the first
building erected by the Rev. Nelson
Merry. She stated that the list build