The Covington leader. (Covington, Tenn.) 18??-current, 1916-01-06
BAPTIST PROGRESS
IN Upton COUNTY

m IN Ii AO1N@A1OONA
j. L. Jacobs at the First Baptist
church last Sunday morning talked
to the Sunday school on Baptist prog
ress in Upton county in the last fifty
years.
Mr.. Jacobs said that he arrived in
Upton county the first day of Jam
uary, 1866. His fathers family set
tied six miles northwest of Coving-
ton in what was then considered the
backwoods near the overfowed lands
of Hatchie river. The first sermon
he heard preached in this county was
preached by ID. II. Cummins, a Pres
byterian minister from Covington, at
Mount Lebanon in an old log church
building. At that time the Presby-
terians and Baptists held services in
mon he heard was by a Methodist
preacher by the name of Hiram Gull
| lum. who at that time preached at
| Leighs Chapel. The third sermon he
heard was preached by N. III. McFad-s
| den, the pastor of the Mount Lebanon
| Baptist church on the fourth Sun
day in January, 1866. After services
he was introduced to the Rev. McFad-
den, who asked him if he (Jacobsla
was not new conner. Mr.. Jacobs
told Rev. McFadden that his fathers
family was Baptists In belief and that
his eldest sister belonged to a Bap-
tist church before the family moved
here from Hardeman county, east of
/ Bolivar.
In a few days the Rev. McFadden
/ x-Sr I,
,f4allJ il.aa new clealinpe-iaa Svoedes-
utter taking about the hardships of
! a. pioneer life, the preacher gave en-
Encouragement by saying that the
brave, the courageous and determined
were the only people that would brave
such hardships.
He then began to make inquiry as
to what our religious advantages had
been and urged our attendance at
Mount Lebanon. He said there were
four Baptist churches in Upton coun-
ty and that the Covington Baptist
church had a Sunday school. That
statement gave my sister an idea of
what the Baptists had done since
the county was settled. Early in the.
spring of 1866 Mr.. Jacobs visited the
Sunday school of the Covington Bap-
list church and found that twenty-five
or thirty were in attendance. r. B.
Owen, the father of w. A. Owen, was
one of the number
At this Sunday school he introduc-
ed himself to Mr.. Jacobs and invited
him to join them in the lesson Will
i liam Wiseman, the father Of Claud
.Wiseman, opened Sunday school by
reading from the Scriptulfes, John T.
/ Douglas lead the singing. The church
had no organ.
l. pox, Ioco1I Do,,,,,., 49, :.
pastor of the Covington Baptist
church in 1866 and preached the Sun
day that Mr.. Jacobs attended the
services. Seventy-ive per cent of the
membership of the church at that
time lived IN the country and came
horseback to church.
I'm the last fifty years the Baptists
have tried to supply the Gospel to
the destitute places in the county.
They had their struggles. Hope gave
encouragement and the result of fifty
years of labor is twelve or thirteen
Baptist churches. The population of
the county, Mr.. Jacobs said, had in
creased in the last fifty years little
more than one and one-haIf times.
The Baptists population had increased
more than fouF times. The Sunday.
| school attendance more than thirty
/ five times.
Mr.. Jacobs said that the Baptists
had helped to solve the religious
phase of the negro problem in the last
fifty years. Before the Civil war the
negro Christians that were Baptists
belonged to the white Baptist
churches and heard the Gospel from
white pastors; but after the slaves
were made free the wise ministry of
the Baptist churches in the South con-
Guided that if the negroes were to be
evangelical, it must be through the
preaching of negro preachers, and
the negro Baptists were organized
into colored Baptist churches. The
Methodists worked on the same plan.
The results have proved the wisdom
of the plan. for ninety-fve per cent of
the co1ored Christians in Upton coun-
tyy and perhaps in our Southland. are
either Baptist or Methodist to-day.
Mr.. Jacobs urged the young men
of the Sunday school to meet the
problems of the next half century
and under Divine guidance all void
be well. e.
MIR. G. L. Lavei1e, of the Burli-