PROVIDENCE BAPTIST CHURCH
Providence Baptist church was founded on December 20, 1834.
When Joseph Walker and his young wife, Drucilla, came from South Carolina they settled near the present site of the church. A mile or two to the northeast Abner Phillips and his wife, Nancy, also from South Carolina, settled. The evenings were long and not without their terrors. Indians, sometimes friendly, but often treacherous, infested the oak and pine forests of the rolling and fertile countryside.
As neighbors, the Walkers and the Phillips’ frequently visited each other. In the evenings, in front of the open fireplaces, they would take turn-about reading from the Bible. When the visits were at the Phillips home, the Walkers’ Negro woman slave would accompany them to the Phillips’ home where another Negro mammy would sit and listen to the Bible reading and the religious discussions and join in the singing.
When the fall came and the season’s crops had been gathered, it was decided that a church should be established. Abner Phillips and Joseph Walker and their two Negro servants were the charter members of the church, but new members who enrolled in the church as they migrated to the new settlement and began claiming the fertile acres from the forests. For 25 years, the first structure served with adequacy the staunch, brave pioneers who settled in the community. Then it was necessary to build a new structure to house the growing congregation. It was then that the present church building was built.
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Copyright 2007-2009 by Betty Turner