USA > Virginia > Virginia Baptist ministers. 5th series, 1902-1914, with supplement > Part 8
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honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity. During his vacation days he worked as an agent for the college, seek- ing students, and in the midst of the session's work started a mission Sunday school in what is now known as Southwest Washington. This section of the city was then known as "The Island." Notwithstanding many obstacles, he worked at this mission, without any com- pensation, during the remainder of his student days. Once he went to one of the leading bookstores of the city to purchase hymn books and other supplies for his mission. The proprietor, a canny Scotchman and a staunch Presbyterian, who was interested in a Presby- terian mission in the same section of the city as Mr. Meador's school, asked the young student for what pur- pose he was buying the books. When the student told him, he said: " 'The Island' is vera aboondantly supplied with releegious privileges already." There were indeed two Presbyterian missions in that section of the city, and they afterwards grew into churches, but now the church that came out of the little Baptist mission has twice as many members as both of these churches put together. Some of the "cold water" thrown on Mr. Meador's mis- sion came from the hands of his own denomination; when he asked the church where he held his membership to endorse the work he was doing, such a resolution was passed, but not until a cautious brother had secured the adoption of this amendment : "Provided this action shall involve no financial responsibility upon the part of the church." In after years, in telling of this event, he would say: "My heart went down into my boots, but I kept on, and in time recovered hope."
A certain week in 1857 had for Mr. Meador three most important events, namely, his graduation at Colum- bian, his marriage to Miss Ann Camp Shields ( formerly of Norfolk, Va.), and the organization of his mission
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into a church, with him as the pastor. This union of church and pastor was to last for over forty-seven years, in many ways a unique and remarkable pastorate. The little afternoon Sunday school, started in what was then the least promising part of the city, using a rented hall and having only such equipment as its young leader could provide by his own efforts, came to be one of the most vigorous churches in Washington, but many obstacles had to be overcome. Just as the little church was setting out on its career the Civil War drove many of its mem- bers from the city and sowed seeds of discord among those who remained. All three of the deacons were Union men, and, taking exception to the Southern sym- pathies of their pastor, offered a resolution calling for his resignation. When the vote on the resolution came no one save the three deacons voted for it, the rest of the
church rallying to the side of the pastor.
Then the
pastor suggested to the three deacons that if they could not abide in peace and harmony they had better take their letters ; this they did. One of the three, after the War was over, came back to the fellowship of the church, became once more one of its deacons and continued, until his death, active in the church and devoted to the pastor ; his family, after more than half a century, are among the most devoted members of the church. A brother of Mrs. Meador, a hardware merchant, was one of the many who left Washington when the War broke out. The Lincoln Administration proceeded to confiscate the property of all such persons, but Mr. Meador, anticipat- ing such action in the case of his brother-in-law, promptly put up in place of the old sign one bearing these words : "C. C. Meador, Dealer in Hardware and Builders' Sup- plies." So great was his versatility and business ability that throughout the years of the War, when the church, disorganized and broken, was able to do little for his sup- port, he made the store the means of his livelihood.
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Up to the end of the War the meeting-house of the church was an unattractive frame building, poorly adapted to the work. A great revival, a year or so after the War, the greatest season of grace known up to that time among the Baptists of Washington, brought over one hundred and fifty members into the church and led to the erection of a commodious meeting-house. But now a new difficulty was encountered. This episode in the life of the church and its pastor is described as fol- lows by Mr. J. J. Darlington, a leading lawyer to-day of Washington and a son-in-law of Dr. Meador :
"The Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Company, then recently authorized to construct its line from Baltimore to Washington, being in effect an extension of the Pennsylvania Railroad system, selected the immediately adjoining premises as the site of its roundhouse and repair shops, running a spur track across the sidewalk within a few feet of the new church edifice, which the greater part of the children attending the Sunday school and of the congregation at the church services were com- pelled to cross, not infrequently at considerable risk of life and limb from the locomotives which shot in and out of the railroad yards at all hours of the day and night, often with little warning. In addition, the smokestacks from its engine sheds were parallel in height with the windows of the church auditorium, through which smoke, cinders, and dust were constantly blown, while the hissing of steam and the hammering and other noises incident to locomotive repairs frequently drowned the music, the songs, and the voices of the pastor and others engaged in worship. Several of the leading lawyers of the Washington Bar to whom the doctor applied for legal relief declined the case, being of opinion that the Act of Congress which authorized the Railroad Company to erect such works and left the selection of a site to its
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own judgment, 'legalized' the nuisance; but eventually the doctor succeeded in having an action brought to test the question, which resulted in the famous decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Fifth Baptist Church vs. Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Company, 108 U. S., 317-a case which has become a leading authority ever since for the proposition that invasion of the comfortable use and enjoyment of prop- erty is a 'taking,' in the sense of the Constitutional pro- hibition against the taking of property without compen- sation, and that, consequently, the legislative grant of power to establish the railroad repair shops was subject to the duty of compensating the adjoining property owners for any injury to the comfortable enjoyment of their property. The Railroad Company subsequently purchased the church property upon the terms at which it was offered to them before the litigation was con- cluded, namely, payment of its actual cost to the church- this after having been compelled to pay about $20,000 in damages for the maintenance of the nuisance prior to the purchase, aided by which funds the present Fifth Bap- tist Church property, valued at about $80,000, was con- structed, and which constitutes one of the most attract- ive, commodious, and desirable church buildings of the capital city."
In 1904 Dr. Meador, in view of his advancing years, resigned as pastor, whereupon the church elected him Pastor Emeritus for the rest of his life, without decreas- ing his salary, and chose, as Active Pastor, Rev. Dr. Weston Bruner. Dr. Meador now served as he was able, his presence being especially desired when members, who had known him through the years, passed away. Just after an address, on one of these funeral occasions, he fell unconscious on the floor of the pulpit and died a few hours later. Thus his desire that he might die in
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the service of his church was realized. He passed away November 9, 1904. To-day the Fifth Street Church, which began as The Island Church, and which owes so much of its success, under God, to Dr. Meador, has the second largest Sunday school in Washington and main- tains eight laborers, namely, the pastor, the assistant, two missionaries in China, one in Africa, one in Persia, one in Kansas City, and one in Tampa, Fla. One of the China missionaries is pastor, at Wu Chow, of the Meador Memorial Baptist Church.
THOMAS F. EDMONDSON 1872-1904
Within the bounds of the Lebanon and New River Associations the work of Thomas F. Edmondson was done. At the age of fifteen he made a profession of faith in Christ and was baptized into the fellowship of the White Top Baptist Church, Grayson County, Virginia. Two years later he was licensed to preach, and three years after his conversion he was ordained, the presbytery con- sisting of Rev. A. J. Hart, Rev. G. W. Pennington, and Rev. N. M. Blevins. He was the son of Dr. Isaac Edmondson, having been born August 7, 1872. After the public schools, the only educational preparation he had for his life work was a part of the session of 1896- 97 at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louis- ville, Ky. On August 28, 1892, he was married to Miss Delilah H. Blevins; she, with five children, survived him. For eight terms he taught in the public schools, and, as a minister of the gospel, was pastor of these churches: White Top, Laurel, Grosses Creek, State Line, Pleasant View, and Apple Grove. In his obituary, by Rev. C. T. Taylor, in the Minutes of the General Association, he is thus described: "He was considered an able preacher, gifted as a revivalist, and a good organizer. He was a firm believer in foreign missions. He preached missions with power and contributed of his own means. He was a pure man, a loving husband and father, a true friend. His chief aim in life was the moral and religious eleva- tion of the people with whom he had to do." He died December 6, 1904, being laid low by that insidious dis- ease, consumption.
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HARVEY HATCHER 1834-1905
Harvey Hatcher, the son of Henry Hatcher and the grandson of Rev. Jeremiah Hatcher, was born in Bed- ford County, Virginia, July 16, 1834. He was in almost every respect different from his younger brother, William Eldridge, of whom a sketch is found in this volume. Harvey was three inches taller than William, and while William was like the Lathams, Harvey was "a Hatcher from back in the primitive days of Careby in England." Harvey was "a sport; his temperament, his physical make-up, and his habits sent him afield. A horse was his glory, a dog was his companion, a gun was the triumph of all mechanism in his sight; game, from the deer to the quail, commanded his tireless pursuit. The chase set him wild; the cry of the pack, no matter whose it was, broke him from everything else, and he would follow the dogs through the day and far into the dead of night." One day he was in the midst of dressing, not having put on his shoes, when a fox came into sight, hard followed by the dogs. When he came to himself he was "four miles from home, in the midst of the most fashionable and aristocratic part" of the community in which he lived. He was without vest or collar, and nothing was on his feet save the cuts and scratches, the blood and the dirt that his cross-country run had brought him.
In 1854 the two brothers entered Richmond College. While the younger brother was gifted as a speaker, Harvey was "great on mathematics." Yet Harvey had aspirations to be a speaker, and after many trying experi-
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ences "became an exceedingly fluent, ready, self- possessed and humorous public speaker." Both brothers graduated in 1858, W. S. Penick being one of their fellow-graduates. (In the sketch of Mr. Penick, in this volume, the list of the whole class is given.) After teaching for a season, Mr. Hatcher began his pastoral career at the Four Mile Creek Church, Henrico County, having in this field "marked success." During the War he was pastor to a very strong negro church and "had much joy in his work." When the War was over he was assistant to Dr. J. B. Jeter, pastor of the Grace Street Baptist Church, Richmond, and then for a year a State evangelist in Maryland, and then he became pastor of the Court Street Church, Portsmouth. He always had "an intense yearning for western life, and for a number of years was exceedingly happy in the pastorate of the churches of Keyesville and Moberly, Mo. He was later on called to Richmond, and served for several years what is now the Grove Avenue Church," known in that day as the Sidney Church. "It is due to Mr. Hatcher to say that he never felt himself quite adapted to the pastor- ate. He had a certain rugged candor which made him impatient under the restraints and confinement of the pastoral relation, and for the last half of his public life he resisted all efforts to bring him back to pastoral work."
Through the suggestion and request of Dr. A. E. Dickinson, Mr. Hatcher was led to take up "pencil driv- ing," as he called it, for the press. He succeeded far beyond his hopes, but he reached his success by hard work, writing his pieces from three to five times. This work was first undertaken for the Religious Herald, but later he crossed over into North Carolina and wrote for the Biblical Recorder, and in 1882 went to Missouri and for two years helped Dr. William Harrison Williams,
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editor of the Central Baptist. In the fall of 1884 he moved to Georgia and bought an interest in the Christian Index. One morning in Atlanta he had a call from Dr. Benjamin Griffith, of the American Baptist Publica- tion Society. This visit led to Dr. Hatcher's beginning his work with the Philadelphia Society that was to last seventeen years. A branch was established in Atlanta, and Mr. Hatcher was connected for a time with this branch house and for a season with the branch in St. Louis. "In this special work he was exceedingly happy. His duties took him through many of the Southern States. He had a heart for fellowship and made friends wherever he went. He did not forget his work, for wherever he went his pleas were heard in favor of Baptist literature and Baptist principles. He was well known, and there always awaited him a joyous welcome, go where he might." Once, when invited by the South Carolina Baptist Convention to tell in thirty minutes about the work of his Society, he said: "Brethren, I can not tell you of all the glorious work of the Society in thirty minutes, nor in thirty hours, nor in thirty years, nor in thirty decades, nor thirty centuries."
Dr. Hatcher was a man of great physical vigor. He was tall and had a finely proportioned figure. And he kept much of his splendid bodily strength to the end. His love for field sports never waned. When he was seventy-two he wrote: "Last season I was often in the fields and frequently brought down one with each barrel on the flush. My sight was so far preserved that I needed no glasses to aid me, and I could locate a flying quail as I did when I was fifty." His death was sudden and on Sunday ; he had preached at eleven o'clock in the Beaufort (South Carolina) Church; at four, in the Sea Island Hotel, without pain or struggle, the end came. Two days before, in a party of nine, down on Caliboga
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Sound, the eighteen dogs had started a deer that came towards Dr. Hatcher. When the deer was within twenty-five feet of the venerable hunter there was a "keen crack of his gun" and the game was his. Among the party were Rev. C. C. Brown and Deacon Danner, of the Beaufort Church. His death was on January 15, 1905.
Dr. Hatcher was married twice. Two sons, Harvey Hatcher and Hally Hatcher, a daughter, Miss Frances B. Hatcher, and his second wife survived him.
JOHN WILLIAM RYLAND 1836-1905
The oldest of the thirteen children of Joseph Ryland and his wife, Priscilla Courtney Bagby, was John Wil- liam Ryland. From the old home, "Marlboro," in King and Queen County, where he was born October 19, 1836, he went forth to Richmond College, from which institu- tion he graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1858. His ordination to the gospel ministry took place at Bruington, his mother church. After two years of colporteur work in the mountains of Virginia he was, for the four years of the War, in the army, Rev. W. E. Wiatt being one of his comrades. On July 24, 1866, he was married by Elder John Pollard to Mrs. Lucy F. Roane (who was Miss Lucy F. Bagby), and in January of the following year he was called to the pastorate of Goshen Bridge (Rockbridge County) and Deerfield (Augusta County ) Churches. On this field he remained for some five years, being for part of the time pastor also of the Craigsville and Williamsville Churches, and preaching at other places throughout the counties of Rockbridge, Bath, and Alleghany. In his report to the State Mission Board, in 1872, he wrote: "There is not a week in which I am not called upon to go to destitute neighborhoods to preach. The people seem to be hungry for the bread of life." In October, 1873, he was called to Hermitage and Zoar Churches in Middlesex County. After two years he gave up the Zoar Church and suc- ceeded Elder Thomas B. Evans in the pastorate of Olivet Church, King and Queen County. He served these churches, Hermitage and Olivet, until his death on
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March 26, 1905. He had wished to die the pastor of these flocks, and so it was. A painful and insidious dis- ease that baffled the skill of physicians in his own county, Richmond, and Baltimore, kept him from active service for a year before the end came. On the very Sunday when his last appointment was to be met at Hermitage Church he departed this life. A few months after his death, Olivet Church, on the thirteenth anniversary of his pastorate, had a memorial service in his honor. A crayon portrait of the dead pastor was presented by Judge A. B. Evans, unveiled by Lucile (a granddaughter of Elder Ryland), and accepted on behalf of the church by Rev. W. W. Sisk. The church also placed a marble tablet in his honor on her walls. He was survived by his wife and his two sons, Walter H. and Willie Mason Ryland.
One who knew him best of all says of Elder Ryland : "He was quiet, pure, unselfish, and true to his God and work. His aim was God's glory and the salvation of souls." In a notice of his death the Religious Herald said that he was "one of the most faithful, useful, trans- parent and lovable men we have ever known. He had no vaulting ambitions. His tastes were simple and his life was that of the quiet country pastor, who led his flock, under divine guidance and in constant dependence on divine power, into green pastures and beside the still waters. In all his sufferings he was brave, meek, cheerful, and uncomplaining."
JOHN MOODY LAMB 1821-1905
The Religious Herald for April 20, 1905, gave its readers, in an article by Dr. J. W. Mitchell, the picture of a face wonderfully attractive by reason of its beautiful blend of intelligence and gentleness. This was the like- ness of Rev. John Moody Lamb, who, twelve days before the issue of the paper, on April 8, had passed away. He was born on June 5, 1821, in Charles City County, his father, John Lamb, being of English extraction and one of a large family of children. The mother, who was as frail and delicate as she was beloved, went to an early grave, leaving three children. Two of these children being otherwise cared for, the father and John were left alone in the home. This parent, a man of strong affec- tions and mind, gave the time, that his farm and books did not take, to the instruction of his son. He was a great reader and the owner of a fine library, but does not seem to have known child nature, and so the retiring boy grew up ignorant of the common events of life and apart from the world. At the age of seven he heard the servants talking of a marriage in the neighborhood, and ran to his father, asking: "What is marriage? Is it a high bridge or a deep ditch?" His father's answer must have puzzled the child: "It is often both, my son." Upon his elder brother's return home as a graduate of Hampden-Sidney College, he became the boy's teacher. So great was the pupil's admiration for the character of his instructor that in after-life he said: "I always regarded him with such love and reverence that I felt that I was unworthy to untie the latchet of his shoe."
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When this teacher died, at the age of forty-two, it was said by one of his fellow-county men that any one in the community could have been better spared. At the age of seventeen John was converted, and baptized by Elder James Clopton in the Chickahominy River at Potter's Field near Mt. Pleasant Church. The presbytery that set him apart for the gospel ministry had as its members Drs. R. B. C. Howell and J. B. Jeter. About this time he was married to Miss Mary Christian, who is described as "one of the most godly and saintly of women." The churches that he served were Manoah, Mt. Pleasant, and Samaria, all in the Dover Association. After more than twenty-five years of this work he was obliged, because of ill health, to give up the pastorate. He continued, how- ever, to preach as long as he was able, and was active in the Sunday school until he could no more attend the services of the sanctuary. Rev. Dr. J. W. Mitchell, who knew him well, says of him: "As a scholar he was far superior to his day and generation. He was not only a diligent student of the Scriptures, but also of the classics, and he became well versed in the best litera- ture. As a preacher he was mighty in the Scrip-
tures. His sermons were well prepared, and were gems of exegesis, logic, and rhetoric. As a pastor he was instant in season and out of season."
During the Civil War his comfortable home and his library were destroyed, his belongings "scattered to the winds and he carried off to a Northern prison." He knew not who would care for his wife, and when he returned home he had almost to begin life again, having no tools, no books, and no money, and his abode being a cabin, yet he never uttered a word about his disasters nor against his enemies. Although childless himself, he greatly loved children, being deeply interested in his brother's children and in the orphans whom he brought
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into his own home. One of those for whom he thus cared, to-day Judge Edmund Waddill, Jr., United States District Judge, was as his own son, giving him love, com- fort, and reverence. After the death of the wife of his youth he married Mrs. Susan B. Harwood, "a woman of rare beauty and spirit and piety, blended with inimitable merriment."
One who knew him well writes thus of Mr. Lamb: "An American officer, describing the second inaugura- tion of Washington, said : 'In the pure serenity of moral integrity and grandeur he seemed to stand outside of physical self, and when he began: "I, George Washing- ton," my blood seemed to run cold, and every one around to start.' So I have seen a congregation move when this man of God, with his ringing, wonderful voice, read at the burial of the dead those immortal, inspiring words of Paul: 'If after the manner of men'; he seemed to stand, pure soul, untrammeled by flesh, exalted by faith, in the presence of God, declaring his lordship over life and death. . I lived close to his life, yet my perspective was good, and it is a perfect test of character that a man seems a heroic figure to those who shared his daily life: so he seemed to my husband and to me." Mr. John O. Otey, who was the lifelong friend of Mr. Lamb, and whom Mr. Lamb baptized in the Chicka- hominy River, probably at the spot where John Smitl: was captured, has given valuable help towards the preparation of this sketch.
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THOMAS W. LEWIS 1822-1905
Northern Piedmont Virginia was where Thomas W. Lewis was born, spent most of his life, and died. Madison Court House, that lies close to the Blue Ridge Mountains and perhaps twenty miles from a railroad, was his birthplace and the last earthly scene on which his eyes rested. From January 11, 1822, to May 16, 1905, a stretch of eighty-three years and four months, the path of this servant of God scarcely passed beyond the bounds of Madison and Culpeper Counties. Thomas B. Lewis and Catharine P. Gaines were his parents. When he was about ten years of age they, with their children, went to Ohio. What must such a trip, in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, have meant to a boy! Scarcely had two years passed when the family was retracing its steps to Virginia, but now they lacked the help of the father, for he had fallen on sleep in Ohio. The mother went with her children to her parents' home in Culpeper, and here Thomas attended school for several sessions. When he was about sixteen years old the family settled once more at Madison Court House, where, for one year, he had the advantages of an academy course. In 1839 he made a profession of religion and united with the Beth- car Baptist Church. After he had taught school and been a clerk for several years he decided to study medi- cine, and began to make his plans to carry out this resolve. His pastor and church, however, were con- vinced that he ought to preach. "He entered into their views, abandoned the store, turned away from the con- templated profession, and gave himself to teaching and
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