USA > Georgia > Liberty County > History of the Midway Congregational Church, Liberty County, Georgia > Part 15
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1. His 10th Report.
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RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF THE NEGROES.
METHODS OF WORK.
1. SABBATH SCHOOLS.
In order to obtain a regular systematic instruction of the negroes, Dr. Jones found it necessary to organize Sunday- schools in different parts of the field. The following were the places and dates of organization :
1. Fraser's Station. August 18, 1833, with about fifty children. Relinquished after a year's time for the want of a suitable building, the house used being needed by the return of the white family.
2. Pleasant Grove. January 12, 1834, organized and con- ducted by Mr. Barrington King and two ladies, with twen- ty scholars.
3. Midway. May 11, 1834, with twenty-five scholars.
4. Jonesville. Organized the summer of 1834, and conduc- ted by families residing there, and under the superintendence of Mr. J. B. Mallard.
5. Walthourville. Organized the same summer by families residing there.
6. Sunbury. Organized the same summer by families there.
7. Newport. Organized March 22, 1835, in connection with Rev. Samuel S. Law and Mr. Odingsell Hart, with forty scholars.
8. Gravel Hill, now Flemington. Organized in the summer of 1835, by Messrs. John ard Ezra Stacy, W. E. Quarterman and others.
Making, in the eight schools within the bounds of the field, twenty-five teachers and two hundred and fifty schol- ars. Of these schools only Midway, Sunbury, Pleasant Grove, and Newport continued through the year. Those of Walthourville, Jonesville, and Flemington were discontinued in the winter, as so many of the families left for their plan- tation homes during the winter months; and for the addi- tional reason that there were services at Midway every Sab- bath during the winter, which so many desired to attend.
These schools were only for oral instruction. A school had
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been established at Sunbury in 1816, to teach the negroes to read,1 but had been discontinued, it being contrary to the laws of the state.2
The interest in these schools gradually increased. In 1835 there were seven schools, thirty six teachers and four hun- dred and fifty scholars. The number continued for several years about the same, notwithstanding the absence of Dr. Jones, who was at the Seminary in Columbia, South Caro- lina, for two years. In 1839, the report shows seven schools, thirty-one teachers, and four hundred and fifty-five scholars. In 1845 we find there were nine schools, thirty-four teachers, and six hundred and forty-seven scholars, which continued about the same number, with perhaps a small advance, un- til the time of Dr. Jones' second removal to the Seminary in the fall of 1848. After his removal, the schools were still kept up. We have no means of ascertaining the statistics during this period, but know from personal knowledge and the statements of others, that the interest continued unaba- ted till the work was interfered with and finally suspended by the casualties of the war.
2. CATECHETICAL INSTRUCTION.
A second thing Dr. Jones saw necessary was Catechetical Instruction. The colored people needed instruction and training as well as preaching. They were not only taught hymns and portions of the scriptures, but also systematic theology. To this end he soon saw the necessity of prepar- ing a catechism of scripture doctrine, which, in addition to the preaching, they were taught. This was a second and independent service after the morning discourse.
3. INQUIRY MEETINGS.
Another thing used was the Inquiry Mecting. He avoided everything like appeal to animal excitement ; discarded what is styled "mourners' benches," or calling up for prayer, or even giving the hand in token of a purpose to seek religion.
1. Dr. Jones' 10th Report. 2. Said laws passed May 10, 1770.
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The inquiry meeting was as far in that direction as he ever went. In that quiet way, he would have at different times various numbers coming up for instruction. In 1839 there were as many as one hundred and twelve in attendance up- on those inquiry meetings during the year, and coming from fifty different plantations.
4. WATCHMEN.
In a work so extensive, having an area of twenty-five by fifteen miles, it was necessary that a missionary should have help. At an early date, even as early as 1811, the church fell up- on the plan of having, in addition to colored ministers, what was commonly known as watchmen. The most pious and trustworthy colored men would be selected and set apart for the purpose of being leaders to the others, to watch the others, to report cases of seriousness, as well as cases need- ing discipline; and would recommend those whom they
thought prepared to enter the communion. There were quite a number of these scattered among the different plan- tations. These watchmen would also conduct plantation meetings during the week, attend burials, and in some cases, authorized by the church to solemnize marriages among the colored people. Dr. Jones found it profitable to hold month ly conferences with them, known as watchmen's meeting.
5. COMMITTEE OF INSTRUCTION.
Then, in addition to these, it was found necessary also to have "committees of instruction," of which mention has al- ready been made. These were intelligent, pious, and influ- ential male (white) members residing in different parts of the district, to whom the colored people were required to go for instruction, and by whom they were to be recommended to the church Session for membership, and without which no application would be considered. I remember when a boy, often sitting by and hearing my father talk to those who would come to him for instruction, as he was one of the committee for the Flemington retreat.
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HISTORY OF MIDWAY CHURCH.
6. PLANTATION MEETINGS.
In addition to the regular Sabbath services, Dr. Jones held plantation meetings in the week at nights. These were held at different plantations, some times as many as fifty, usually under the superintendency of the owner, if a christian. In these meetings the watchmen took active and leading part, especially in the absence of the missionary, and at points he could not reach. The system of evening prayers on different plantations, commenced as early as the ministry of Mr. Holmes, was kept up, and conducted usually by one of these watchmen.
CO-LABORERS.
As the work advanced, the necessity for ministerial labor- ers likewise increased. Dr. Jones gladly welcomed as co- laborers in the field, Rev. S. S. Law, and Rev. Josiah S. Law, of the Baptist church, who preached at Sunbury and North Newport, and afterwards at Hutchinson; and also Rev. Au- gustus O. Bacon, a pious and promising young minister, of the same church, who preached at Newport for a short time, and whose untimely death was so much regretted. Dr. Ax- son also for several summers delivered weekly lectures to the negroes at Jonesville, where he resided.
After the removal of Dr. Jones to Columbia Seminary, the field was occupied by Rev. Josiah S. Law until his death, October 5, 1853; afterwards by Rev. John Winn, who la- bored from 1851 to 1857; then by Rev. R. Q. Way from 1859 to 1866; and lastly, by Rev. R. Q. Andrews, during the year 1867, till the removal of Dr. Buttolph and the vir- tual dissolution of the old church, all of whom were em- ployed by the executors of Lambert's estate, as missionaries to the colored people.
RESULTS.
As the result of the labors of Dr. Jones and his co-adjutors, multitudes of the colored people were brought into the churches. From the records of the Midway church, I have
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gathered 1,238 names of colored people received into that church during its entire existence, though I have reason to believe that these figures fall short of the truth. It is a sig- nificant fact, however, that of this number, 677, more than half, were added after Dr. Jones commenced his labors among them.
The following is his estimate in 1846, of the colored mem- bership of the different churches in the district :
Midway, Congregational, 377. Pleasant Grove, Presby- terian, 31; Methodist, 21. Sunbury, Baptist, 161. New- port, Baptist, 543. Total, 1,133, which was nearly one- fourth of the whole negro population of the district at that time, according to the tax returns there being 4,212.
And this estimate grows upon us, when we remember that the increase of membership was much more rapid after this, as the records show an addition of more than five hun- dred members to Midway alone, from this time till the dis- solution of the church, twenty-one years afterwards.
So we feel safe in saying that at the time of the dissolution there were not less than seven hundred colored members of the Midway church, with fully as many, and even more, in connection with the other churches, making a total of about fifteen hundred, out of a population of over four thousand colored people, being nearly one-third of the whole.
In addition to the large accessions to the different church- es, the improvement in the morals of the negroes became marked. There were very few cases of crime or disorders of any sort, few if any runaways, as at first, when in one sea- son there were as many as fifteen in the district. The patrol system, in a great measure, fell into disuse, there being no regular organized and active patrol in the whole district; and this the more remarkable as out of the one hundred and twenty-five plantations, there were only twenty-four upon which the owners resided permanently all the year round, forty-one upon which they remained half of the year, and sixty upon which no white persons resided at all during any part of the year, being only visited by the owners or overseers in the day. That the race was greatly benefitted
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HISTORY OF MIDWAY CHURCH.
and elevated by these efforts in their behalf was admitted on all sides.
As bearing directly upon this point, I here give the follow- ing extract from the address of Rev. Robert Quarterman, delivered before the association, at their annual meeting, January, 1844:
"Contrasting the present state of things with ten years ago, we are constrained to ask, 'What hath God wrought?' That there has been great and manifest improvement, is ev- ident to every one, even the casual observer. Drunkenness, theft, falsehood, profaneness, and even lewdness, (that hith- erto crying sin among them) though not wholly banished, do now exist to a very limited extent, in comparison to what they formerly did. In external appearance, too, we rarely behold that filthy and disgusting squalidness, that utter in- difference to even common decencies of life, which so gener- ally prevailed in former times. There is also a greater re- gard to the duties and obligations involved in the various relations of civil and social life; those obligations are better understood, and those duties are better performed. Indeed they are in all respects a more decent, orderly, and morally respectable people. Their tone of character, in a civil, so- cial, and religious sense is evidently elevated and improved."
Not only were the colored people of the county directly benefitted, but a deep and wide-spread interest was awak- ened in their behalf throughout the whole country, north, east, south, and west. Nothing contributed more to this general interest than the extensive correspondence of Dr. Jones, as well as the publication of his annual addresses be- fore the association at their annual meetings at Riceboro, which were scattered far and wide; and also of his catechism and other writings upon the subject, which were used in other places, the catechism being translated into Chinese and oth- er languages, and used by missionaries. His extensive cor- respondence, and the wide and general circulation of his writings on the subject soon made him the recognized leader of the whole movement, and Liberty county again became celebrated for taking the lead in the great work of instruct- ing and elevating the negro race.
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RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF THE NEGROES?
Dr. Jones wrote the report of the committee to whom the subject of the religious instruction of the negroes was sub- mitted, and who presented the same to the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia at their sitting at Columbia, South Carolina, December 5-9, 1833.
At a meeting called by twenty-four leading citizens of Charleston and South Carolina to consider the religious condition of the negroes, and which met at Charleston, May 13-15, 1845, a committee of five were appointed to collate and prepare an address, from the reports and papers received by that convention, and after approval by a publishing committee of ten, to publish the same. Dr. Jones prepared the report and also superintended its publication.
He also prepared a volume published by the Presbyterian Board of Publication, on religious instruction of the negroes.
At the organization of the Southern Presbyterian church at Augusta, December, 1861, Dr. Jones was present, and though too feeble to stand, delivered from his seat upon the platform a stirring address on the claims of the colored peo- ple and duty of the church to them. The writer was present and heard the same. It may safely be said that no man has ever done more for the colored race of this country than he. No man was ever more beloved and appreciated by that people, his name being mentioned with reverence to this day. His labors extended from December, 1832, when he com- menced regular work among them, till the close of December, 1847, when called a second time to the Seminary at Colum- bia, South Carolina, (thirteen years). And even during the years 1837-8, when at Columbia for the first time, he would spend his three months' summer vacation at his home in Liberty county preaching to this people. And for all this labor he received but a small contribution from the estate of Lambert, and that for only a part of his time. Being blessed with means, he entered the field at his own charges. He continued to render this gratuitous service for seven entire years, till 1841, when the executors of said estate made an appropriation of $400, which amount they afterwards con- tributed annually until his removal. Dr. Jones has well been styled by Dr. Mallard, in his "Plantation Life," as the "apostle to the colored people."
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HISTORY OF MIDWAY CHURCH.
REMARKS.
Concerning this work among the colored people, I offer the following remarks :
1. It was effected under a variety of agencies. The mis- sionary, Dr. Jones, was Presbyterian, and yet the church, in the bosom of which the work was conducted, was Congre- gational, the teachers generally being members of it. The association, directly charged with the management of it, was undenominational, members of other churches connect- ed with it, Baptists being officers as well as others. No ef- fort was made to induce the colored people to join Midway, it being left to their own free will. Many joined the Baptist churches at Sunbury and Newport. The different ministers employed with and after Dr. Jones, viz .: Rev. Josiah S. Law, Rev. John Winn, Rev. R. Q. Way, and Rev. R. Q. Andrews, were all supported, as already stated, by the estate of Lam- bert, the church not paying a single cent. So it seems that Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists members of Midway church, and the estate of Lambert, all contributed, more or less, in connection with the labors of Dr. Jones, to the grand result.
2. The colored people were never set off in a separate church organization. The policy was always to keep them in connection with the whites. They had quite a number of preaching places where suitable houses were erected for wor- ship, as at Midway, Pleasant Grove, and afterwards at Hutchinson (now McIntosh), yet no separate organization. A small Presbyterian church was organized at Pleasant Grove in 1843, the building being put up in 1841, and ded- icated December 12th of the same year, but was more for the accommodation of the whites in the neighborhood than the colored people. It never had more than thirty mem- bers, and was reported to the Sy nod of Georgia in 1866 as dissolved. Indeed, the colored members have always been _ partial to Midway, accommodations being made for them in the gallery on three sides;1 also to their own structure
1. This explains the unusual number of windows in the upper story of the church building as appears in the cut.
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near by on the church grounds. They were all publicly re- ceived, as the whites, before the entire congregation, and communed together, the whites below and the colored peo- ple in the gallery. I know of nothing more interesting than to insert just here a picture of one of these communion scenes, as sketched by the facile pen of Dr. Mallard and ta- ken from his "Plantation Life."
"SACRAMENT SUNDAY IN MIDWAY CHURCH."
"It was a great day with both white and black, and an- ticipated with joy by the pious , and interest by all. There was a peculiar quiet about the morning of the sacred day on the plantation. All the sounds of the busy week have ceased ; the noisy rattle of the chain of the horse gin is silent, the flails in the barnyard are still; few loud calls are heard about the quarters ; the negroes are seen sitting on the sun- ny side of their houses, mothers with their children's heads in their laps, carrying on in public an operation better suited for in-door privacy ; no sounds are heard but the lowing of the cattle, the whinnying of the horses, the crowing of the cocks and cackling of the hens; the gobbling of the turkeys ; the shrill cries of the geese; the winds appear to be asleep, and the very sunshine seems to fall more gently than during the week upon the widely extended fields and surrounding woods !
"Our honored father, a deacon of the church, sits by the window, and with a knife carefully sharpened the day before divides upon a clean white board the wheaten loaves into little cubes of bread, and the "elements," as they are called, together with the genuine silver goblets and silver tankards and silver baskets, previously polished by the deft hands of the house girl, with the little contribution boxes for the of- fering in aid of the poor, are all safely packed away in a wide basket.
"Prayers and breakfast over, the family dress for church; and now the order is sent out to the stable boys and the carriage driver to "harness up;" and directly the high- pitched carriage, with its lofty driver's seat and swinging
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HISTORY OF MIDWAY CHURCH.
between its "C" springs, and the two-wheeled "top-gig" and the saddle horses are brought around to the front gate; and although it is scarcely more than nine o'clock, and the dis- tance "a short mile," the entire family, as was the custom, ride to church. As we roll along the broad highway, we find the servants clean and neatly dressed and in their best, some on foot and others in Jersey wagons, crowded to their utmost capacity with little and big, and drawn by "Marsh Tackey's," equal in bottom and strength to, and no larger than, Texas ponies-all moving in the same direction ; those on foot carrying their shoes and stockings in their hands, to be resumed after they shall have washed in the waters at the causeway near the church; for they believe in treading the Lord's courts with clean feet! Many are the kind greet- ings and mutual inquiries after the health of each other and of their families, exchanged by whites and blacks.
We are among the first to arrive, but every moment we hear the thunder of vehicles rolling across the half dozen bridges of the swamp causeway near at hand, and the neighing of horses ; and here come the multitude, from dis- tances of from one to ten miles and more. Horses are un- harnessed and secured, and the worshippers fill the small houses surrounding the church, or stand in the sunshine, or saunter about the grounds, or visit the "graveyard."
Under my father's superintendence, the long narrow red- painted tables and benches are brought out from the vestry and carried into the church, and arranged in the aisle before the pulpit. The church building, 40x60 feet in size, is very ancient ; it was built in 1792; it is the successor of one de stroyed by the British, and of a plainer and coarser, put up after the Revolution. It is of wood, originally painted red, the old color showing beneath the later white, and is sur- mounted by a spire, with open belfry and a weather vane, which used to puzzle our child brains to ascertain what it was intended to represent. It has five entrances, two of which admit to the gallery. Passing in by the door, open- ing upon the graveyard, and near which was our family pew, we look up a broad aisle to the pulpit, which, small and closely walled in, soars aloft toward the ceiling, and is
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surmounted by a sounding board, like a gigantic candle ex- tinguisher, supported by an iron rod, the possible breaking of which often aroused our infantile speculations as to what, in that event, would become of the preacher ! It was reached by a lofty stairway running up in front. At right angles to our aisles runs another as broad, connecting the two other doors. Aisles run around the sides of the audience room, and the pews are so arranged that everybody seems to be facing everybody else! A wide gallery extends around three sides, resounding often with the creaking of new brogans, which the black wearers were not at all disposed to suppress. The communion table and benches reach the entire length of the broad aisle to the pulpit; the whole covered with the whitest and finest of linen (our mother's special care). A cloth of the same kind conceals from view at its head the sa- cred symbols of our Lord's atoning death. There is above a single row of sashed windows, out of reach, and transoms over the solid shutters of the windows below; but not a sign of a stove in the church, although the air sometimes is frosty, and the shut up atmosphere occasionally of the tem- perature of the vaults in the cemetery hard by. And brides in the olden time, in mid-winter, came to these services clad in muslin, with only the protection of a shawl, and in paper- soled slippers, laced up the ankles. Why there never was any way of warming the church I never knew, nor heard explained. Doubtless some caught their death of the cold, which often made us children shiver and long for the bene- diction which would dismiss us to the sunny sides of the houses without or to their fires within. It was not, how- ever, ordinary bitterly cold, for the winters were for the most part mild.
All things having been prepared, there is a half-hour's prayer-meeting, attended by such worshippers as have ar- rived early.
"At eleven o'clock the regular communion service begins, with an invocation from one of the pastors; for we always had two. An earnest, well written, often eloquent, always solemn, sermon is preached from a manuscript, either by the venerable Rev. Robert Quarterman, long since gone to his
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reward, or his young and handsome coadjutor,1 Rev. I. S. K. Axson, now living in Georgia, a feeble old man; the long list of names of members received at a meeting of Session two weeks before, and 'propounded' the Sunday preceding, is read again, and white and black candidates advance to- gether, the last marshalled by the colored preacher, Toney Stevens, a slave. The candidates for baptism kneel and re- ceive from the marble front, at which all, white and black, infant and adult, are baptized, the sacred sign of God's cove- nant love. The new members dismissed to their seats, one of the pastors gives out the hymn of institution (none other was ever sung), "'Twas on that dark, that doleful night;' during the singing of it the communicants fill the seats at the long tables and adjacent pews; the non-professors among the blacks have not been admitted to the galleries above, as there is not room. After the consecrating prayer, a tender address is made, and first the bread is distributed in the same silver baskets and at the same time, to all the communicants, white and black, below and above; another address, and the wine is passed around by the deacons, my venerated sire one of them. The number of black communicants is so large, that Toney Stevens comes down from the gallery to replenish the gold-lined silver goblets from the basket of wine in bottles near the pulpit; and as the wine is poured out, its gurgling in the solemn silence smites distinctly upon our young ears, and the whole house is filled with the aroma of the pure im- ported Madeira. Communicants overlooked in the distribu- tion of the "elements" are asked to signify the fact by rais- ing the right hand; and if any have been passed by (which never occurred), they will be waited upon. We children, awed and almost frightened spectators, look on from our pews upon the solemnities, which suggest sad thoughts of a possible separation which the judgment may, like the com- munion table, make between us and our beloved parents!
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