The Minutes of Salem Baptist Church: Hamilton County, Tennessee 1872-1915

By Daniel Roark

"To endure the hardships of the frontier took more than a determined pioneer spirit. It required a faith that everything would work out for the best-that something more was to come other than the meager crops they scratched out of the earth."-from The Minutes of Salem Baptist Church

Salem Baptist Church was one of the small pioneer churches that nurtured that faith. Located near Birchwood, Tennessee, Salem Baptist Church led the community in the midst of its physical hardships from 1835 to 1941. Through the Civil War, Reconstruction, the migration of its members to Texas for cheap land, the turn of the century, and later, the depression, the small church led its community in faith.

The minutes and supporting research provide not only a unique history of the families in the community, but also a unique genealogical record of over 175 families told through church action and membership records. Join Daniel Lee Roark on his journey through the history of this small pioneer church in East Tennessee. Experience the coming together of these families, turning to the Lord in difficult circumstances.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 6, 2005
• ISBN: 9780595801350

Daniel Roark

Daniel Lee Roark has written columns and articles for newspapers and magazines for the past thirty years. While writing The Minutes of Salem Baptist Church, his focus changed to Christian writing. He is a member of the American Christian Writers Association, Christian Writers Guild, and Christian Writers Fellowship International.

Book preview

Copyright ©2005 by Daniel L. Roark

All rights reserved.No part of this book may be used or reproduced by

any means,graphic,electronic,or mechanical,including photocopying,recording,

taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written

permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in

critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

2021 Pine Lake Road,Suite 100

Lincoln,NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

ISBN-13:978-0-595-35657-7 (pbk)

ISBN-13:978-0-595-67256-1 (cloth)

ISBN-13:978-0-595-80135-0 (ebk)

ISBN-10:0-595-35657-5 (pbk)

ISBN-10:0-595-67256-6 (cloth)

ISBN-10:0-595-80135-8 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Preface

Chapter One

Salem Baptist Church

1835-1872

Chapter Two

Salem Baptist Church

1872-1879

Chapter Three

Salem Baptist Church

1880-1889

Chapter Four

Salem Baptist Church

1890-1899

Chapter Five

Salem Baptist Church

1900-1909

Chapter Six

Salem Baptist Church

1910-1915

Chapter Seven

Salem Baptist Church

1915-1941

Appendixes

To the stalwart members of Salem Baptist Church who,

like the Apostle Paul, fought the good fight, finished their course,

and, most importantly, kept the faith.

Image349.JPG

Church Book of Salem Baptist Church

Top: Bound church book. Bottom: Original page of church book

Preface

For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them. Matt. 18:20 KJV

A church in the 1800s would, if possible, obtain for its records a book of bound blank pages. The business of the church would be noted in this bound volume which would be called the church book. The church book could also be a sheaf of papers bound by a piece of string or in another manner. The church took the care of its book quite seriously. Paper was not yet in ready abundance. Space in the book was guarded carefully, using each page as judicially as possible. The surviving minutes of Salem Baptist Church were found in such a book.

Transcription of a text, particularly a text from a previous century, is a task wrought with trepidation. It is more than a simple matter of typing written text. Research is required throughout the entire process. Transcribing church minutes from a previous century requires that the transcriber understand the events, attitudes, and convictions of the people involved at the time the minutes were written. The transcriber must, at least temporarily, acquire those attitudes and convictions.

In the past two years, I have found myself sitting in Salem Baptist Church, sweating from the heat of a mid-summers day, patiently listening to a sermon from a preacher who was approaching middle age one hundred years before I was brought into this world. I sat with the church clerk as he wrote the minutes of the day’s meeting by candle light following baptism at Moon’s Landing. I have felt the joy of being accepted into the church and the agonizing, soul searching pain of being excluded from a religious community.

Although any mistakes in the transcription of the minutes must rest entirely upon my shoulders, I have, at all times, tried to remain true to the original text, which was no easy task. The education of the members of Salem Baptist Church varied, though they were largely uneducated by today’s standards. Fortunately, due to the minimal qualifications for church clerk of simply being able to read and write, the job of clerk naturally fell to the members who could do so. Often the clerk would be someone who held a civil service position such as A.L. Stulce who was Deputy County Court Clerk.

A recurring difficulty was caused by the habit of one clerk spelling a surname differently than another clerk, neither of which would be correct. To make family research easier, I have tried to list all possible spellings in the index. However, in some instances it is possible that, regardless of additional research, I was never able to ascertain the correct original spelling.

In addition, modern software stubbornly refuses to accept misspelled words and would often automatically correct my purposeful misspellings, causing me to re-type it until the software accepted it the way it was spelled in the minutes. This same problem also affected capitalization and other punctuation. And while rearranging the minutes to fit into the text in order to keep the book at approximately 300 pages, I have tried to remain true to the original minutes.

The history of Salem Baptist Church is based on the minutes and other available church documents from Salem, its sister churches, and East Tennessee Baptist associations, with additional research to confirm dates, to connect events and people, and to add additional information on events surrounding Salem Church. When the minutes are quoted in the text, proper English and punctuation are used without continual reference to the minutes.

As I made progress on the minutes and came to know the members of Salem Baptist Church, the project became not only a labor of love, but the impetus for a journey that encompassed soul searching, religious reflection, and introspection. Researching and writing a history of people and times past requires one to come to grips with his or her own mortality, causing a reevaluation of the author’s life, purpose, and contribution to reflection by future generations. Transcribing the minutes and writing a history of a church necessitates a confirmation of the author’s religious beliefs, attitudes, and convictions. It is impossible to delve into the history of a religious institution, much less one which one’s ancestors attended, without reexamining ones’s beliefs.

I would like to thank my father for sending me on that journey and accompanying me along the way and my mother for her unwavering support all of my life. I would like to thank my wife, Cyndy, for her perseverance and patience. Cyndy put up with hours of my not being entirely in the present and listened patiently to endless stories of another time and place. I would also like to thank my children: Jennifer, Conner, Cameron, and J.D. Jennifer for allowing me to be a father and the three boys for putting up with their father’s times of distraction and impatience.

It is necessary for me to thank Howard Scott for his reminiscence of the last days of the Salem Baptist Church and for editing the integration of his story into the text. Thanks go as well to Darwin Lane and David Roark of the Roark-Conner Association for their support and encouragement. Sadly, David Roark

passed away before the book was published. He does, however, reside now with the Lord and the ancestors he so meticulously noted in his books of the Roark-Conner lineage.

As for the journey, it is ongoing. The essence of the journey, however, lies within these pages. It is my hope that readers will accompany me on the journey, not only learning about Salem Baptist Church, but also experiencing church life on the frontier in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Image356.JPG

Maxmillian Haney Conner

Maxmillian Haney (M.H.) Conner, arriving in the Salem area in the early 1835, was one of the trustees of Salem Baptist Church when title to the church property was established. M.H. Conner would remain an active and faithful member of Salem Church until his death.

Chapter One

Salem Baptist Church

1835-1872

Sunrise in the wilderness of East Tennessee in the early 1800s would bring a shine to the leaves, a sheen to the dew covered grasses, and the sound of horse hooves pounding the ground, echoing through the trees across the hillside. The horse’s rider would be wearing the closest thing to a Sunday-go-to-meeting suit he could afford, with an overcoat if not summer. The saddle bags would hold a well worn Bible. In the rider’s hand, and laid across the saddle in front of him, was a rifle, armed and ready.

The rider would be a minister on his way to one of his churches or to an area in need of a church. If he met anyone on the trail, where there was a trail, it would most likely be another minister, a farmer on