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)