"Five Things to Be Avoided..."

From The Christian Index, January 29, 1841, attributed to "Dr. Doddridge"

Five things to be avoided, when called upon to preach in strange churches. 

1. Do not choose texts which appear odd, the choice of which vanity may be supposed to dictate.
2. Nor a text of censure: this is assuming.
3. Nor a text leading to curious and knotty questions: then it would be said you preached yourself.
4. Do not aim to eclipse the minister of the place by an extraordinary display of talent: this is unkind. But,
5. Choose a text of an extraordinary edifying nature, connecting doctrine and practice together, still not a doctrine in respect to which there may be at that time much division among the people: this, I think, does not belong to a stranger. Deliver the discourse with urbanity and Christian feeling; you will then be welcome a second time.

 

Help Wanted (in 1918)

From The Christian Index, Oct. 10, 1918:

"WANTED -- A young preacher, single preferred, for a mountain mission field, at a salary of about $1,000 per year. Must have some real preaching ability, and not be lazy. Address W. R. McEwen, General Missionary, Jonesboro, Ark."

"I do not marry gloves" -- the Rev. Dr. Jesse Mercer

When Dr. and Mrs. Charles Mercer Irwin were married on 11 November 1834, Mercer University was about a year and a half old, and Jesse Mercer, for whom the school was named, was almost 65. The groom turned 23 that day. Two days later, the Baptist church in Madison was organized.

The circle of Baptist life in Georgia took one more step towards weaving a tight web in support of the unseen but highly expected future for believers of that persuasion in the state. That fall, now 177 years in the past, was very much alive to those gathered at Powelton Church in Hancock County, GA.

Considered handsome and brave, Charles Mercer Irwin was the oldest son born to socially and financially settled Isaiah Tucker and Isabella Bankston Irwin. The couple were pious and benevolent, and it was reported that Charles was consecrated by his mother in prayer as on the day of his birth she had pleaded that he might become a minister. She proceeded to shower him with a childhood that prepared him for that eventuality. The Irwins were the best of people. "Col Irwin, father of Rev. C. M. Irwin, was a prince in person and intellect and heart," wrote Dr. James S. Lawton in 1885. "Georgia never possessed a nobler citizen, nor the Baptists a more worthy representative. He was wealthy, lived in a princely style, and with his noble wife delighted in dispensing a munificent hospitality."

Charles Irwin was baptized in 1829 at age sixteen by Enoch Calloway and joined Sardis Church in Wilkes County, which had been the first pastorate of Jesse Mercer years before. In 1830 Isaiah and Isabella sent Charles to Powelton for education under Rev. Otis Smith, who would in the next decade become the second president of Mercer University. Irwin studied with Smith until entering the University of Georgia on 1 July 1832; he left UGA to study law at the University of Virginia and was admitted to the bar in Warrenton, GA, the month before his wedding. It was a breathtaking time!

Irwin's bride was Harriett Ellen Andrews Battle of Powelton, GA. Harriett was five years younger than Charles and the daughter of Reuben Taylor Battle and Bethia Castellaw Alexander. Did they meet while he was in school at Powelton? It's likely.

Harriett was the niece of Governor and Baptist chorister William Rabun and his wife Mary Battle Rabun, and she had two sisters, Amanda Melvina Fitzallen Battle (Mrs. Judge Eugenius A.) Nisbet and Mary Lucinda Battle (Mrs. W. J.) Harley. Jesse Mercer had baptized her father Reuben, who became an active and influential member of the Powelton church and a promoter of education. Reuben's guiding hand and generous nature helped form the community into a bastion of education, particularly with Baptists. Reuben Battle's ancestors were Baptists who fled England to avoid persecution and he was a hospitable man who took pleasure for thirty years serving his local Baptist church as a deacon; he shared his affluence and his spiritual persuasion with those who were sick, sorrowing, destitute or otherwise needy.

Charles and Harriett were wedded, we can be sure, in a ceremony that pulled out all the stops. Attendants were from the best families in the area and included (later Gen.) Paul Semmes (C.S.A.), James Hodge, Frank Nisbet, Dr. W. D. Battle, and Misses Anna Wooten, Fanny Wingfield, Mary Battle, and Ophelia Reid. Candleholders were Mary Jane Battle, sister to Archibald Battle who was president of Mercer University in Reconstruction, and Mat Irwin who married Col. O. L. Battle.

The story of the day was recorded for posterity after their 50th anniversary in the 18 November 1884 Atlanta Weekly Constitution. It says in part: "In those days brides wore tightly-fitting kid gloves of gauntlett (sic) fashion, extending up to the elbows. When old Father Mercer said join hands, seeing the gloves, he remarked, 'I do not marry gloves.' So the bridesmaids rushed forward and tore the glove from the right hand." What fodder for local raconteurs back then and for decades to come.

After the wedding Charles devotedly practiced law in Washington, GA, where he lived with utmost esteem of those who knew him. "He was a young man of comparative wealth and high scoial position, ambitious of political eminence, and exceedingly popular," wrote Baptist historian Samuel Boykin in 1881. "He entered, with ardor, into the political campaigns of the day, with an eye to place and power; but his refined nature revolted at the election concomitants of that day. He retired from politics, purchased a plantation in Hancock county, on which he settled with his family, and permitted the quiet duties of a successful planter's life gradually to absorb the aspirations of ambition. He became more and more interested in church matters. His fine vocal powers and fondness for singing made him a useful church member."

As clerk and deacon at Powelton Church, Irvin often led the Wednesday night prayer meetings which called him to embrace a previously stifled desire to assume the ministerial role his mother desired. "In 1839," added Boykin (who married Harriett's niece Laura Nisbet), "conscience took him to task for stifling his convictions and disobeying the call of duty, and pointed out to him the comparative barrenness of a life that might be fruitful of good works. ... He began to pray for light, and to advise with judicious friends (and) at length the clouds dispersed; he was enabled to recognize and obey his call to the scared work of the ministry." He was ordained at Powelton in 1844 by a presbytery of Billington Sanders, William H. Stokes, Vincent R. Thornton, Jesse B. Battle, and Radford Gunn. Jesse Mercer had died three years hence or he would have been there, too.

After ordination Irvin arranged for his planting interests to be handled by others and he began to travel and preach in many places including destitute ones without ministerial services. In time he pastored a number of churches including those at Louisville and Powelton and then Madison where he moved his family in 1848. Irwin was a fund-raiser and instrumental leader in establishing the Baptist Female College in Madison in 1849. This excellent school was supplied with scientific apparatus often neglected with young women and was staffed with a competent faculty. Hundreds of parents sent their daughters there for a well-rounded education and it was something of a competitor to the Penfield Female Academy adjacent to Mercer.

For a few months in 1854-1855, Irwin was the first pastor to Atlanta's Second Baptist Church though he resigned when the death of his father required him to take on executive duties. Next he was pastor in Albany where the opening of war in 1861 found him. That May Irwin, together with Samuel Boykin, purchased the Christian Index, the official newspaper of the Georgia Baptist Convention, and co-edited it until the paper was sold to J. J. Toon in Atlanta in 1866. During those years, he lived in Lee County on his plantation, preaching gratuitously and assisting families in need. When the war ended, he explained the changes of their world to his then-freed workers and counseled them about pecuniary and educational opportunities.

A short time in 1869 he pastored Macon's Second Baptist Church but resigned due to ill health; he tried then to pastor again at Madison when he was forced to resign again so that he returned to his home in Lee County to recover. In 1872 Irwin was appointed state agent for foreign missions by the Georgia Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention Foreign Missions Board. In December 1873 and January 1874 he was too sick to work though he was thereafter back in the saddle. He urged giving to missions even from his sick bed: "I ask the earnest co-operation of every brother and sister," he wrote. "Our Foreign Board is in great need of funds now to sustain our missionaries. Pastors, please bring the subject before your churches at once, and send on your funds--ten cents, quarters; any amount." In this position Irwin, despite his likable character, was not always welcomed as some churches were hostile to those making the rounds for collections. In 1875, for example, Hightower Association in North Georgia refused to allow Irwin to even speak before their annual meeting and then reconsidered and gave him a few minutes to talk though they refused to appoint a committee to consider his words or to take up missions money.

Irwin was for fourteen years assistant clerk to the Georgia Baptist Convention, the meetings of which he attended for four decades. He served churches in Bethel, Central, Georgia, Houston, Mell, Stone Mountain, and Washington associations.

Irvin's family ties to Mercer University went far beyond having its namesake perform his marital rites. Irwin's father, Isaiah, was on the first board of trustees for the school in 1838; Charles Irwin's sister Martha's husband (O. L. Battle) was a trustee in 1851-57; and Charles Irwin's daughter Mary Isabell married Rev. M. B. Wharton, a Mercer trustee from 1875-1884. Charles Irwin was trustee from 1845 to 1890, serving with distinction and being most commonly remembered as the man who in 1870 made the resolution at the Georgia Baptist Convention in Newnan to move the school from Penfield to Macon.

Boykin near the end of Irwin's life described him: "In advancing his own opinions he is fearless but not forward, his manners being ever polite and refined. Quiet and rather taciturn by nature, he speaks seldom, but always to the point. A keen sense of the ridiculous pervades his being, and he excels in telling a good story. Judicious, thoughtful, the soul of honor and faithful as a friend, he is kind and indulgent as a husband and father. As a preacher, he was measurably careful in the preparation of his sermons, and very effective and sometimes passionately impetuous in their delivery, never railing to please and interest, on account of his melodious voice and earnest manner in the pulpit."

Another Baptist biographer and Mercer University professor extolled Irwin's "wonderful ability" as a pastor. Wrote Shaler Granby Hillyer: "In this sacred office he had no superior and few equals. His easy and unaffected yet graceful manners, dominated by sincere sympathy and Christian gentleness, qualified him to be a welcomed visitor in every household. The rich found in him an equal whom they could honor, and the poor found in him a friend whom they could trust and love. With such qualities he mingled freely with his people. With him his pastoral visits were second only to the claims of the pulpit. ... The secret of his success was found in his loving visits to his people."

When Charles and Harriett celebrated their Golden Anniversary in 1884, friends won over the years gathered to fete them and wish them many more. Guests brought "handsome" gifts and were entertained by "Mr. and Mrs. Hurst of the Hurst homes" in what was called "a very enjoyable affair indeed." And, with Charles' natural wit and propensity for storytelling, it seems likely the tale of the gloves surfaced again.

Many more did not, however, happen. Harriett died on 19 January 1886 in Maysville in Banks County and Charles died 23 February in Mount Airy in Habersham County. Burial was in Mount Airy Cemetery in Habersham County for these two distinguished though all but forgotten Baptists of yore who gave their hands--gloved and otherwise--to any who needed them.

Compiled with the help of Peer Ravnan and written by Arlette Camp Copeland

Sources: William Cathcart, The Baptist Encyclopedia, 1881; "The Golden Era," Atlanta Weekly Constitution, 18 November 1884, 2; Bartow D. Ragsdale, A Story of Georgia Baptists; Samuel Boykin, History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia With Biographical Compendium, 1881; "Ordination," The Christian Index, 12 March 1842; Second Ponce De Leon Baptist Church Centennial Year 1854-1954, 7-8; Sixty Years of the Life of a Country Village Baptist Church, Dahlonega, GA, 1837-1897 by a member who joined it fifty years ago, 31-32; Mildred Jackson Cole, From Stage Coaches to Train Whistles, History of Gum Creek, Mt. Enon, Baconton Churches in Mitchell County, 52; Marion Luther Brittain, Semi-centennial history of the Second Baptist Church, Atlanta, GA, 9; "To Georgia Baptists," The Christian Index, 29 January 1874; Shaler Granby Hillyer, Reminiscences of Georgia Baptists, 1902, 234; Mr. and Mrs. J. T. Peacock, History of First Baptist Church Madison, Georgia, 6, 13; Ancestry.com; Dr. James S. Lawton, The Baptist Centennial Volume, 1885, 154.

Noah and Ark

Ordination certificates issued in 1799 don't pop up every day. The approval from a Baptist church for a licensed minister to become an ordained one is given once, and when that piece of paper gets lost it's gone.

So when a New York-based producer telephoned the Mercer University archives seeking a copy of the certificate for Noah Lacy, I was not hopeful. And I was correct: we don't have it. If this certification is not with the family or the issuing church then most likely it's gone. Things do turn up in unlikely places, it's true, so, readers, if you are holding this two century-old treasure, let us know!

And who was Noah Lacy anyway?

Noah Lacy was a leading minister of Sarepta Baptist Association from the year of his ordination until his death about a quarter of a century later. He attended Georgia and Sarepta Association meetings regularly so that he knew most Georgia Baptist pastors of his day. He would have been on at least speaking terms with the likes of Jesse Mercer and Adiel Sherwood and many other towers of strength in Baptist life. Those ministers held sway over political and social changes and events in their communities. In the annual Baptist meetings those men hammered out policy of what is and isn't proper for a church member, handing out declarations still followed today. Their weight among parishioners and others was such that we should never sell them short in terms of their impact on Georgia life.

Noah Lacy shows up in Sarepta Association Minutes as an ordained minister and as pastor at Bethany Baptist Church from 1804 until the mid 1820s. Bethany Church, originally in Wilkes County, was established in 1788 with the assistance of Rev. Silas Mercer, father of Jesse Mercer for whom Mercer University is named. Other ministers in that constituting body were Robert Jackson, John Gilbert, Charles Flinn, and David Allen from surrounding churches. Bethany was apparently the only church Noah Lacy pastored.

Born around 1745 in St. James Northam Parish, Goochland County, VA, Noah Lacy married Eliza Mary Wilson (born in New Kenty, VA, about 1752) about 1768. They had eleven children--all born in Virginia--including daughter Judith Ann, born in 1775, who was (according to one genealogist) third great grandmother to 1959 Miss America, Mary Ann Mobley.

Noah Lacy lived through--literally--revolutionary times, and it seems he joined in the defense of his native land as the state Auditor’s Account Book XVIII (1738-1784) shows he was paid for services in the state militia. When the fighting was over he was licensed to preach in Virginia. Church records indicate he preached at the Powhatan church. He may also have preached at Appomattox River Baptist Church in Prince Edward County circa 1790.

Sometime in the 1790s, the Lacys moved to Georgia. We don't know what they brought with them but Noah's will, filed in Oglethorpe County on 28 February 1824, indicates some of what they had accumulated. He left a feather bed and furniture and bedstead to his wife and asked that everything else he owned (other than his land) be sold so his executors might use the proceeds to sufficiently and liberally support his wife Mary. That indicates some amount of holdings. He also provided that after her death the items left to her would be sold with the proceeds plus remaining money from the first sale divided between his female heirs. His sons were left with his property and the money he had already given them.

In the year Noah Lacy was ordained he was named church clerk, and, along with John Herren, he attended the newly formed Sarepta Association's meeting at Vans Creek Church to petition the association for Bethany. The church's request for membership was accepted. The next year Lacy was named a messenger from Sarepta to the Georgia Association’s annual meeting. Georgia was the first Baptist association in the state and Bethany held membership in that body before Sarepta was formed so it was like going back home.

According to church minutes, Bethany Church selected Noah Lacy as pastor on 14 April 1804, a position held for more than two decades. During the first decade of his ministry, growing tension between this country and Mother England sent Baptists to prayer sessions. On 1 June 1812 the association held a fasting and prayer day “to avert the calamity of war.” At the same time evangelism was sweeping the state. In 1812 the association’s churches reported 1,265 baptisms. Baptist membership rose to 3,157!

In these years Noah Lacy was amongst Baptist leaders such as Isham/Isom Goss, William Davis, Dozier Thornton, Lacy and Littleton Meeks, Isaiah Hailes/Hales, James Rogers, Thomas Gilbert, and Thomas Maxwell. Noah's sons John and William followed his pastoral footsteps; John Lacy was chosen clerk at Bethany on 16 September 1826 when Radford Gunn was chosen pastor--possibly following the pastorate of Noah though Noah Lacy’s death date is somewhat uncertain. Some sources give the definite date of 15 September 1824 while others say “About 1825” or “About 1826.” If by chance he died on 15 September 1826 the church selected Gunn as pastor the next day.

Whenever his death occured, it seems Noah Lacy was active until near the time he passed over. In the October 1824 Sarepta meeting, “N. Lacy” was named back up preacher for Isom Goss for the 1825 annual meeting at Cabin Creek in Jackson County. Apparently his health was good. In 1825 Rev. Goss preached and no mention is made of Lacy. Then in 1826 "Brother Lacy" was named a messenger to the Ocmulgee Association meeting. Was this Noah or a son? No distinction is made on "Brother Lacy"'s frequent contributions to association work until 1834 when John Lacy is noted.

Not surprisingly, there are questions about exactly the John Lacys who served churches in subsequent years. Baptist records note J. or John Lacy as pastor in Sarepta and Yellow River associations as early as 1828 and we can probably safely assume this was Noah's son John, born in 1792. This may also have been the John Lacy who served in Tallapoosa, Stone Mountain, Hightower, and Lawrenceville associations in the 1850s. But, the lack of personal information makes it impossible to say definitely. We also can't easily delineate which of Noah's sons showed up in Sarepta Association records through the years as the association minutes only say, "Brother Lacy." Maybe they were all John?

Noah's son William preached in Ocmulgee and Yellow River Baptist associations and is referenced as a pastor from 1824-1850. Born in 1790, William (who died about 1860 in Randolph County, AL) on 22 November 1810 married Margaret (Peggy) Wise in Oglethorpe County, GA, and they had four children. In 1827 he married Mary Brooks and they had at least three children and maybe up to seven. William was pastor in Clark County, GA, in the 1820s and 1830s though the family also lived in Gwinnett County and in the late 1830s moved to Chambers County, AL. A son was killed fighting the Creek at Shepards/Shepherd’s Plantation in Stewart County, GA, in 1836. Did that prompt the move to Alabama? We don't know. William’s son Isaac became a Baptist preacher, too.

While Noah had not enjoyed much formal education in colonial Virginia, we can imagine the same was true for his children in post Revolution Georgia. Baptists did help with the education of William though in his adulthood. Before Mercer Institute (forerunner to Mercer University) opened, money was given by the Georgia Baptist Convention to young ministers for books and tutoring. William Lacy was a beneficiary in 1827--the year of his second marriage. By 1831 William was a domestic missionary for the convention in Yellow River Association working among “destitute settlements.” The GBC paid him $20 and asked him to continue. In 1832 he served in destitute places west of Morgan County and received $32 for sixty-one days of work.

Several of Noah and Mary Lacy's children moved eventually to Mississippi, taking with them the tradition of hard work and spiritual faith learned in Georgia. Surely they took momentos of their life here, too, as they went west where they were fruitful and multiplied. With the large number of Lacys following patriarch Noah in the southeast, there’s no telling which one might have taken that missing ordination certificate.

And why does a PBS producer want information on Noah Lacy? That will be told in May 2012 when "Finding Your Roots," produced by Ark Media, is aired. Hint: Lacy is the direct line ancestor to a very well known present-day Baptist minister with a different surname.

Submitted by Arlette Camp Copeland

(Sources: Ancestry.com; Georgia Baptist Convention Minutes; Sarepta Baptist Association Minutes; Minutes of Bethany Baptist Church, Oglethorpe County, GA; Noah, John Butler, and William Lacy biographical files, Mercer University Tarver Library Special Collections; various online genealogical sites and conversations)

Sealed with brilliance

One hundred and twenty-eight years ago this week John Henry Seals sat down at his desk to write a wistful column of reminiscences prompted by a visit to Penfield, GA.

The “cool shades, green lawns, and restful quiet” of the community led his “overworked brains” back to early childhood scenes and “a thousand incidents.” Seals, an 1854 graduate of Mercer University, was brilliant. We can say that without hesitation because the word was repeatedly attached to his name by, it seems, everyone who described him. It ran in the family; his older brother William was considered brainy, his younger brother Thomas was valedictorian of Mercer's 1856 class, and John Henry's son was ... brilliant.

Initially educated at Powelton Academy, John Henry Seals received an A.B. and A.M. from Mercer. He only took third honors at graduation though, it was said, he could easily have taken first had he cared to do so. "He was not ambitious ... and being naturally lively and fun-loving, and fond of society, he did not devote his entire time to his books," wrote journalist and biographer Wallace Putnam Reed in 1899. "It was easy for him to master a lesson at a single reading, and his exceptionally fine memory never failed him. When other students were burning the midnight oil this bright youngster was enjoying himself after the fashion of the average light-hearted college boy. He felt that he could afford to do it for his experience had assured him that a glance at his text books would enable him to hold his own with the brightest members of his class."

Born in Warren County, he was the son of a planter father, Thomas Seals, and a mother with a respected lineage of her own, Mary Ann Burnley. John Henry, like his siblings, did the family name proud. He married the daughter of Mercer's first president Mary Ellen "Mamie" Sanders; their only child was tragically killed in 1876 when he fell off an excursion railroad train crossing a bridge near Port Royal, SC. In his "eighteenth year," Henry Millard Seals was considered "one of the most brilliant youths of the State" and if all reports are true, he was. His parents were understandably crushed.

Brokenhearted or not, the ever impressive Mercerian found value in the life given to him and contributed broadly to his community and the state as a writer, editor, educator, publisher, and lawyer, never wavering from his public duty until his death in 1909.

Career for John Henry Seals began upon graduation from Mercer when he purchased a weekly newspaper, The Temperance Banner, then published at Penfield, and moved it to Atlanta. He changed the name to The Georgia Literary and Temperance Crusader. Despite youthfulness, Seals succeeded "brilliantly" as he took over both the editorial and business departments.

Contributors flocked to him and before long the temperance aspect of the paper was fading fast. "Stories, sketches, essays and poems of more than average merit were furnished by southern writers, and some of these contributors were destined to be come famous," said Reed. "Editor Seals was the master spirit of the enterprise. His genius, tact, ready sympathy and cultured taste brought him in touch with his writers, and his kindly words of encouragement had judicious praise had the effect of developing and bringing to the front a new school of story-tellers and poets."

This ascendancy was interrupted as a national war of words lead to a conflict much more deadly and devastating to the South Seals knew and loved. During the 1860s war years, he suspended the paper's operation and ran a publishing house for the Confederate government, furnishing printed matter for the post office and the military. He was known for publishing the first code of Georgia which was the work of Thomas R. R. Cobb, Judge David Irwin, and Judge Richard H. Clark. When the war ended, Seals read law and was admitted to the bar in Greensboro. Prosperity came again though he was unhappy as he "cared little for such triumphs in a distasteful profession."

Turning to education, Seals established the Robert E. Lee Academy at Greensboro and subsequently was principal of the Cuthbert Male High School. Following a few pleasant years in this field, he returned to Atlanta in 1874 and in November published the first issue of a literary weekly known as The Sunny South. After almost bankrupting himself with the first issues, money began to pour in and the enterprise turned golden for Seals who reveled in the opportunity to paint the "local color and flavor" of the South for a national audience. With long a full mustache and goatee, Col. Seals wrote, edited, and spoke with natural-born enthusiasm and gusto for readers and hearers on a vast scale. His dashing self was considered a one and only.

With the newspaper booming, he and Mamie sent their son to Macon for his sophomore year of college. Predictably Millard was dogged by consummate good fortune as he was roundly approved socially and academically; he took first honors. For reasons now unknown, Millard did not return to Mercer the next year but joined his father's business and it was during that intermission of education he took the fateful trip.

His father eventually regained himself and continued his life's pursuits, apparently never letting his broken heart tarnish his ability to touch his world. "The personality of Colonel Seals is striking and attractive," said Reed of Seals when he was 60ish. "Tall, slender and graceful, of the brunette type, with flashing eyes, animated features and a ringing, musical voice, he never fails to sway and please his hearers. Time and again he has followed some dull speaker who has nearly emptied the hall, and in a few moments the crowd returned, packing the house and applauding the silver-tongued orator to the very echo. He has received so many invitations to speak that he has missed hundreds of barbecues simply because he did not like to be almost forced to make an off-hand speech at a time when he was seeking rest and recreation."

Mamie died first and her husband, who was always partial to outdoors activities such as hunting and fishing, lived as a widower on the outskirts of Atlanta in Chamblee where he was allowed the luxury of chickens, cows, and pigs. Throughout his life he remained "thoroughly versed" in worthy reading material--he adored Shakespeare and Milton--and disdainful of the "trashy fiction" popping up in post Reconstruction and turn-of-the-century Georgia. With his interest in and knowledge of politics, business, and industrial development, Seals was asked to run for mayor of Atlanta though he withdrew his name.

His giftedness, his tender heart, and his achievements are impossible to summarize or detail. We get a glimpse into the man when we read his written words. When he sat down in 1883 to review his life at Penfield and the recent visit there, his emotion took over the retrospection and the ardor of his heart was revealed.

Wrote Seals: “The warm grasp of the good old citizens and the bright eyes of hundreds of jolly college mates he could see, and feel as of yore. As he sat again in the familiar old chapel and gazed once more upon the solemn cenotaph of the venerable Mercer, he could hear in imagination, the fiery, Demosthenic eloquence of the boys, and the persuasive eloquence of the grand old preachers, all of which were delivered from the same rostrum. And more than this, he could hear too, the indignant voices of Mercer, Billington M. Sanders, Absalom Janes, Vincent Thornton, Thomas Stocks and others crying aloud: ‘Beware O, ye my descendants! Beware how ye pull down the work of our hands. Yea, let it be established and nurture ye this tree where we have planted it!’ But the old halls are deserted, the college has long since been removed, and a solemn stillness broods in unbroken monotony over the once gay and beautiful campus.”

From this it is obvious Seals, though it was more than a dozen years after the removal of Mercer University to Macon, GA, still regretted the university's change of venue from Greene County's jealous environs and regretted its loss to the affectionate ones who dedicated their lives to the school's cherished care.

While there Seals visited some who remained from the old guard including Mrs. Billington (Cynthia) Sanders, Nathan Hobbs, J. R. Sanders, Benjamin Spencer, and W. A. Colclough and mentioned prominent “solid” younger leaders such as Charles M., Jerry, and Dr. Joseph Sanders; Joe, William, and Luther Boswell; Felix Malone, Doc Champion, and Jesse Fluker. He ended the column with a promise of more on Penfield and said those current “random thoughts” had been delayed by severe illness.

Life had moved on, and John Henry Seals--like all of us--knew the cost of passing years in a way he could not have imagined at college graduation time. We cannot find a follow-up by Seals with additional Penfield reflections. By that time he had sold the newspaper and was working diligently every day in the production of the literary periodical which became almost synonymous with his name. Today a glimpse into the life of this one and others who wrote copiously of their thoughts and lives can be found by us mostly by scanning microfilm or online digitized copies of literary documents.

Here and there are a few originals exist, kept by people of the past so that people today can "see" their lives more than a century and a quarter later. And we thank all those who have a part in holding up the line of preservation so these glimpses are available to us. What a trip it is when we are conducted through time by the engineers who mapped the way when they gave to us, saved and sealed, that time machine known as a newspaper. John Henry Seals was a brilliant conductor on the train of time.

Sources: Sarah Donelson Hubert, Genealogy of Part of the Barksdale Family of America, 1895, 30-31; Georgia Marriages, 1699-1944 (online database); U.S. Federal Census 1860, 1870, 1900; "A Visit to Penfield," The Sunny South, John Henry Seals, 15 September 1883, 4; "Some Georgians of Our Day," The Sunny South, Wallace Putnam Reed, 15 April 1899, 7; Mercer University Triennial Register; Henry Millard Seals and John Henry Seals biographical files, Mercer University Tarver Library Special Collections.

Compiled by Arlette Camp Copeland with information researched by Arlette Copeland and Peer Ravnan, Special Collections assistants.

A Golden Era

Erasmus Zerulus Franklin Golden.

Can you imagine learning to write that across your school slate? Superfluous though it seems today, E.Z.F. Golden took his somewhat excessive name with him on a path that was meaningful, passionate, and consequential to people across a swath of Southern states. Proud though he probably was of each section of his appellation, Golden went by his initials as a general rule.

Born on a mid-May day in 1853 near McIntyre in Wilkinson County, GA, E.Z.F. Golden was one of at least eight children whose births were celebrated in the home of William Harvey and Elizabeth Manderson Golden. He was, according to a daughter, actually the third to the youngest of fifteen children born to his father who married E.Z.F.’s mother after the loss of his first wife. The 1860 U.S. Census shows Erasmus (spelled Evasing by the census taker) as the second of three sons coming after four daughters to that union. Four years lapsed between son Andrew and Erasmus so a child may have been born who died in that period. Father Golden was a farmer, and the family lived in a farming community in the county’s Bloodworth district. Evenso, Bess Golden Dunston said her grandfather was a farmer-teacher and a great reader who named all his children for scholars.

Subsequent nineteenth century census reports are missing for E.Z.F. though by the turn of the century we see the adult Erasmus married to the former Mattie Elizabeth Ross of the respected Ross family in Georgia’s peach district. Born in Carsonville, GA, on New Year’s Day 1858, Mattie was the daughter of Dr. Benjamin Lafayette and Louisa Frances Mangham Ross. Family tradition says the dashing, mustachioed Erasmus met Mattie when she accompanied her father to a Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Savannah in 1881; nuptials were on 25 July 1883 in Houston County. Their first child, daughter Louise, was born in 1885, and from there regular additions followed—Bessie, E.Z.F. Jr., Ross, Lafayette, Marye/Marie, and a son who died as an infant in 1897. All six children, said Dunston, “lived to be good citizens and good Baptists.” The last federal census to list Erasmus was in 1920. He and Mattie lived in Pleasant Grove, FL, with daughter Bessie, then 28. E.Z.F. died in Leon County on 3 July 1927.

In the interim—that segment known as “life”—E.Z.F. and Mattie Golden knew a full one. A graduate of Mercer University in 1876, E.Z.F. was ordained at Liberty Baptist Church in Wilkinson County around the time he was graduated. The presbytery consisted of E. J. Coats, G. B. Hughes, and J. M. Hall with Coats preaching “a most able and interesting” ordination sermon. While at Mercer, Golden gathered bouquets of good wishes from those who taught and knew him. He was a student under the presidency of Archibald Battle whose nephew Henry remembered hearing his uncle speak with glowing words of Golden. Said Henry: “… long before I had grown to manhood, the name E. Z. F. Golden wore in my imagination a very tender and lustrous halo. … I seem to hear again the words of my uncle … extolling him as a student and Christian young gentleman almost without a peer. I matriculated at Mercer years later, but the fragrance of his college life, in class room and family circle, lingered to inspire and delight.”

In subsequent years of the nineteenth century, Golden served churches in Georgia’s Bethel, Ebenezer, Mercer, New Sunbury, Piedmont, and Rehoboth associations, and in the first decade of the twentieth century pastored in Hephzibah and Western associations. His ecclesiastical leadership encompassed Irwinton, Bethel, Central/Atlanta, Cuthbert, Hephzibah, Louisville, South Macon, Thomasville, and West Point churches in Georgia.Golden was instrumental in organizing Valence Street church in New Orleans, moving from there to Texas for several months.

In his four years at Thomasville, which began in 1879, Golden persuaded the congregation to build a parsonage in the rear of the church and started the people towards long-range plans for a new church building before the roof of the old building fell into such a state that it had to be replaced. Wherever he went he inspired enthusiasm and activity that lead to attempts towards the best programs and progress for Christian expansion. He was often called on to perform wedding ceremonies, too, and online lists of marriages repeat his name frequently in Glynn County between 1889 and 1904. The Goldens moved there in 1887 as he became pastor at Brunswick. According to the church history, his annual salary was $750 and pastoral garb of the day was a tall beaver hat, a frock coat, a white shirt, and black tie.

By 1894 Golden was pastor at Cuthbert where his salary increased to $1,000 a year in a congregation with a membership of 150. A sermon by Golden published in the 13 September 1894 Christian Index was accompanied by a line drawing of him—a handsome man with large, soft eyes, close cut dark hair, a thick mustache, and Burnside-type sideburns. The next year the church purchased a pastorium for $1,700, indicating a booming time as the church had long wanted to make this move. The next year, however, those attending the January conference voted to read out loud in February the names of members in arrears on their pastor’s salary pledges. After he’d been there four years, the church had a new building completed—constructed in front of the 1852 wooden structure—with a cornerstone engraved with the name of the pastor and the building committee. On 12 June 1898, Golden preached at the opening services in the new building and the next month he resigned, effective 1 November.

While at Cuthbert, Golden voiced his opinion on the subject of allowing female students at his alma mater. Wrote Golden in June 1895: “When a woman has determined from choice or necessity to enter business or professional life she should be freely admitted to all the means of preparation and qualification. She should not be discriminated against on account of sex. As she must succeed or fail on her own account she should have an equal chance. The University courses should be open to her. Any woman wishing to study law, pedagogy, business etc., should be admitted.” That was as far as he could stretch his feministic bounds. Golden was against women mixing with undergraduate men because co-education would stir up much opposition and because the “physical development of the sexes require different conditions.” Besides that, women should be prepared for their expected positions in the “refinements of home.” Apparently the university was quite pleased with his opinion as he was awarded an honorary D.D. degree that year.

When Golden left Cuthbert, appreciative notes were published in the Macon Telegraph and the Index. “No one,” wrote the Index editor, “has contributed more of his time and substance than did Mr. Golden towards its (the new building’s) successful beginning and completion. It will ever stand as a living monument of his very faithful pastorate … Mr. Golden has many strong friends not only in his own but other churches here, as well as the people generally, who will regret to see him leave.”

Golden then sought to fulfill his lifelong dream of operating a denominational newspaper and he opened the Baptist Mirror which published on Thursdays. His aspirations were dashed as hoped for support from the Christian Index was not forthcoming and the paper’s cashier absconded with their funds leading to a folded pursuit. This was not his first writing endeavor for in 1896 he had published Uncle Tommy Muse: a pioneer preacher of southwest Georgia, but journalism was not to be his career at this juncture.

Returning to the pastorate, Golden served churches in Georgia, including one at West Point where his ministry brought increased mission activity as he and Mattie launched full force into evangelistic efforts. Mattie organized the Royal Ambassadors in 1910, the first such group for young boys in the state, and reorganized the Young Women’s Auxiliary. The church history extols the goodness of the Golden years: “A two week revival was planned during Dr. Golden’s pastorate,” wrote H. E. Barkley. “At the end of the two weeks, spirits were still high and crowds were overflowing the sanctuary. So, the revival was extended another week and moved to the City Auditorium to accommodate the crowds. … dish pans were used as offering plates.”

One of the most memorable events in the couple’s life must have been the wedding of oldest daughter Louise. According to Barkley, Mattie Golden started planning that wedding at the child’s birth. By the time Louise married James C. Ramsey on 24 February 1910, the event was “the most unusual and elaborate wedding to be held in the church and probably the Chattahoochee Valley.” Continued Barkley: “There was some dissension between the pastor and his wife over whether the minister should wear formal clothes during the ceremony or a business suit. Dr. Golden refused to wear formal clothes because it was not in the best Baptist tradition and despite repeated pleas from his wife he stuck to his guns … Highlights of the wedding included a ‘cupid’ dressed in pink tights, complete with bow and arrow, who ‘shot’ the couple with no unfortunate results. As the wedding party left the church, legend says a flock of white doves were released. … Apparently a lot of money had been spent on clothing for the bridesmaids and flower girls, for there was a lot of marching in and around the church that day. A long music program preceded the actual ceremony with solos, duets, and four-man choruses, as well as music from a hand-pumped organ. The ceremony itself was of little note but afterwards, the wedding party and guests walked on a ‘white covering’ that began in the church aisle and extended to the parsonage next door. The porch was enclosed with green blinds and the entire ceiling of each room was covered with smilax with mistletoe hanging in little clusters.”

That fall Golden took a congregation in Enterprise, AL, followed by a pastorate in Arcadia, FL, where his journalistic expertise was employed again as Golden was several years editor and business manager of the Florida Baptist Witness. The demanding position for a turn as pastor at Leesburg, FL. In retirement Golden supplied the church at Williston, FL, until he died. He was buried on 4 July 1927 in Lone Oak Cemetery in Leesburg though later his body was removed to the Ross family burial lot in Oaklawn Cemetery in Fort Valley, GA, to lie by the side of his mother who outlived him eleven years. His exaggerated name takes up two full lines across the substantive granite marker. His dear Mattie lived until 22 August 1938.

When Golden passed, his death was mentioned multiple times in the Christian Index as Baptists sought to commemorate a life well spent. A telegram prompted the first notice, published on 7 July 1927; he was called a “beloved man” who endeared himself to countless people. Henry W. Battle wrote: “I think of him as having completed a flawless life, and fallen on sleep when the tired and pain-racked body, long tossed on troubled waters longed for relief; I think of him as laying down a crown of thorns to put on a crown resplendent with precious stars of redeemed spirits; I think of him as entering, with inexpressible joy and fadeless vigor, upon a sphere of service beyond the reach of mortal comprehensions; I think of him as kneeling at the Savior’s feet, and mingling with the fathers who have gone before. Who would call him back?” Battle described Golden as a scholar, a gentleman, and an unostentatious “good minister of Jesus Christ” who left a priceless heritage and example worth imitating.

Charles M. Brittain, another Mercerian, remembered Golden as “the old school type which is rapidly passing away” and a man easy to know and easy to love. “He was warm and affectionate in his make up,” said Brittain. “His sympathetic manner of greeting friends and even strangers, was a quality possessed rarely by men in public today … He faithfully and powerfully preached the word of God as long as he could stand in the pulpit. He possessed a keen spiritual insight into all things that related to the work of his beloved denomination. … Our hearts are sad at the passing of Dr. Golden. His character like his name was golden. His public messages were golden, and now he passes on to receive at the hands of his Master, whom he loved and served so well, a golden crown.”

Contributed by Arlette Camp Copeland; information compiled by A.Copeland and Peer Ravnan

Sources: A History of Mercer University 1833-1953, p. 404; The Christian Index 26 October 1876, 13 September 1894, 6 June 1895, 7, 14, and 21 July 1927, 11 and 18 August 1927; History of the First Baptist Church of Cuthbert, Georgia 1831 to 1981, unnumbered pages; Links of God History of the First Baptist Church West Point, Georgia, pgs. 81-84; The Macon Telegraph, 26 July 1898 and 1 November 1898; Mercer University Catalogues and Triennial Registers; N.W. Ayer & Son’s Newspaper Annual 1898, p. 114; U.S. Census, 1860, 1900, 1910, 1920; One Hundred Years of the First Baptist Church Brunswick, Georgia 1855 1955, pgs 9-12; Thomas County 1865-1900, p. 163.

Looking Back

With the coming of the 150th anniversary of America's Civil War, people who haven't given that conflict the time of day since high school now are doing imaginary time travel to get a glimpse of life in those olden days.

In that vein, think of yourself in Georgia's Hall and Gwinnett counties on Saturday, 24 August 1861.

On that day, Archibald Harrison Holland, who had turned 17 three weeks before, attended an enlistment rally for the Confederate Army that became a turning point for him and a juncture of anguish for his mother. How did it feel to be him ... and her? He was caught up with the excitement of it all, but she refused to let her oldest son go gently into the environs of what was shaping up to be a nasty war.

“He became so enthused on this occasion that he immediately joined Company I, 24th Ga. Regiment, Wofford’s Brigade, Longstreet’s Corps, Lee’s army,” wrote Gwinnett County historian James C. Flanigan years later. “His mother, hearing of her son’s joining the army, mounted a horse and started after him, but was not able to catch up with the young soldier. He, together with the other volunteers, spent the first night at the Lawrenceville campground, and then moved on to Virginia.” They stopped first at Lynchburg and then were sent to North Carolina for coast guard duties.

Little is known now of Holland’s mother other than that she was fiery enough to make a last ditch effort to pull her oldest son from the clutches of a fate she feared maybe worse than death. Fortunately, Arch Holland lived to tell his war tales and marry three times and have numerous children—and to become a Baptist preacher, a farmer, and a man with a desire to help others help themselves.

But on that hot day, Arch was bound for some kind of glory! The what ifs of an indefinite battlefield loomed far more real in the mind of his mother than in his as he carefully considered the discourse he'd been hearing of late. Just the day before, the Georgia Telegraph had published an editorial reflecting the high tide of confidence in which his fellow Southerners were reveling. Right then Holland was feeling the emotion generated by recruiters and politicians to possess many a young man and he was thinking “If I don’t go now, I might miss the whole war!”

Wrote the Telegraph editor: “Three months of field warfare with the Northern hosts have been followed with results as favorable as any Southern patriot could ask.—Three months of actual campaigning have covered the South with glory, and filled the North with shame and confusion. An enemy which started out ninety days since, confident of overrunning and subjugating the whole country … is now doubtful and despondent—ready to admit that they cannot cope with us on equal terms and extremely doubtful whether they can successfully met us at all. Three months of campaigning end with the Southern blood up at fever heat, and volunteers rushing to our victorious standards with unsurpassed numbers and ardor.”

Ebullient rhetoric had prevailed at the spirited rally Arch attended, and, like others, he was swept up on a forceful wave of exuberant patriotism. He became, then, one of hundreds who couldn’t wait to join the regiment being recruited from White, Banks, Towns, Rabun, Gwinnett, Elbert, Habersham, and Hall counties.

Arch Holland’s left-behind family, on the other hand, worried greatly as Holland launched forth. He left full of the concern of parents Isaiah Samuel and Malissa Bennett Holland (married 31 March 1838 in Forsyth County) and the love of seven siblings ranging from older sister Elizabeth to baby Edward. Born 2 August 1844, Arch was the second child born to the couple and the first in a string of seven boys. One more daughter joined the circle during the war. In the meantime, father Sam—born in Pendleton, SC, in 1824—continued offering his services as a wheelwright erecting wheat/corn mills around Hall County’s Hog Mountain community and mother Malissa, of course, kept caring for the family at home.

As son number one signed on a fateful dotted line, Malissa Holland, who was about five years older than her husband, brimmed with dread, clinging to hope and uttering prayers. Soon a second son followed his older brother to war. Did mom let him go willingly? No story survives of that parting.

Happily, both sons returned and married and raised children for the grandparents to love. Sam Holland died in 1873 and Malissa in February 1896. She was buried at New Bethany Baptist Church on Holiday Road in Hall County’s Oakwood community where son A. H. Holland--about fifteen years down the road from when he went off to war—became pastor.

--Submitted by Arlette Camp Copeland

Sources:

“24th Georgia Volunteer Infantry,” Wikipedia.

Archibald Harrison Holland biographical file, Mercer University Tarver Library Special Collections, Macon, GA.

“Forward to Washington,” The Georgia Telegraph, 23 August 1861.
History of Gwinnett County Georgia 1818-1960, J. C. Flanigan, 1959, page 489.

New Bethany Baptist Church, Hall County, Microfilm Reel 659.