An old Georgia Baptist Church

“It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of Silas and Jesse Mercer and the Powelton Baptist Church to the remarkable growth and success of the Baptist denomination in Post-Revolutionary War Georgia. The history books are full of references to these icons and to the importance and stature of Powelton Baptist.” (Powelton Baptist, at Historic Georgia Churches)

Powelton Baptist Church in Hancock County is one of the state of Georgia’s oldest Baptist Churches. (The oldest, Kiokee, was organized in 1772.) Powelton was organized as Powell’s Creek Church by Silas Mercer, John Harvey, and John Thomas on July 1, 1786, with 26 original members. Silas Mercer became the first pastor. Jesse Mercer, son of Silas and namesake of Mercer University, became the pastor 1797 and served until 1825. 20 years later in 1806, during the tenure of Jesse Mercer, the White Plains Baptist Church was organized by members from Powell’s Creek.

Powell’s Creek is significant in my personal history because my Vaughn and Parker ancestors were affiliated with the White Plains Church, and the Smyrna Church organized out of White Plains in 1828. (In fact, there were Parkers in the Powell’s Creek Church, but I do not think I had any direct ancestors who were members there. Further research might prove I am mistaken.)

When I saw the baptismal pool, a walled-in spring, it reminded me of our somewhat more rustic Texas version, a spring at Chinquapin enclosed with heart pine lumber by Smyrna Baptist Church circa 1873. Part of the difference, no doubt, is that the Rusk County walled spring has suffered from some 125 years or so of abandonment to the woods.

Surprisingly, some of the existing Powelton building dates back to a structure built in 1798. Note that when some people refer to Powelton as “Georgia’s Oldest Baptist Church” they actually mean “Georgia’s Oldest Baptist Church Building.”

Historical Marker

Links on my right sidebar

On my right sidebar, I have 16 links. I do not think I have ever written about this in any direct or specific way. Here is some explanation of what is there and why. One reason they are there is to make them easy for me to find. I hope it has the further benefit of making it easy for you!

Personal blogs, sites, and music interest

Two of the links are pages from this blog, About it (and me) and Guidelines for posting. Four others are sites I maintain (some not very well), and the other is our official or semi-official website for the Sacred Harp singings here in Texas.

• East Texas Sacred Harp - A site to promote the Sacred Harp Singings that we have in East Texas.
• Mt. Carmel blog - Includes the text of my history of the old Mount Carmel Baptist Church in southern Rusk County, Texas, as well as other Rusk County Baptist History (churches, people, places).
• Old Prospect Baptist Church - Our church website, not very well kept up. Not exactly my best skill set.
• Sacred Harp Singing in Texas - A website that promotes Sacred Harp Singings in Texas, with singing announcements, history, biography, and more. Maintained by Gaylon Powell.
• What’s Happening at Old Redland? - Information about the progress, or lack of progress, in maintaining the old Redland church house (aka we have no money).

Biblical and textual related blogs
Not all the posts on these blogs are about the Bible, but the defense of the Traditional Text of the Bible is a primary interest and topic of the owners and contributors. Each have a slightly different approach to the subject. Very helpful. 

• Standard Sacred Text.com - Blog of son and father Peter Van Kleeck, Jr. and Peter Van Kleeck, Sr., to promote and defend what they define as a Standard Sacred Text.
• Stylos - Blog of Jeff Riddle, pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church. Defense and promotion of the traditional original language texts and related issues.
• What is Truth? - Blog of Kent Brandenburg (Baptist missionary in Utah) and Thomas Ross (Baptist Mukwonago Baptist Church). Defense and promotion of the traditional language texts, the KJAV English translation, and related issues.

Other

• Baptist History Homepage - The Baptist History Homepage is a huge site for Baptist history, original Baptist documents, Baptist biographies, etc, maintained by Jim Duvall, Editor.
• Biblical Studies Blog - The blog of BiblicalStudies.org, an online host of Journals, Monographs and Lecture Series. The blog primarily consists of free downloads of public domain titles. Recent examples include Commentary on Jeremiah and Lamentations by Benjamin Blayney, Regnum Dei (Kingdom of God) by Archibald Robertson, and Treatise on the Use of the Tenses of Hebrew by Samuel Rolles Driver.
• Find-A-Grave - “Search or browse cemeteries and grave records for every-day and famous people from around the world.”
• Praisegod Barebones - “The online musings of Bart Barber,” a Southern Baptist pastor historian. Not very active anymore (as a personal blogger).
• The Baptist Sentinel - A pastor friend writes about the doctrines and books of the Bible, and preaching the Word of God, history of Christianity, and pastoral ministry.
• Viajando Ligera - Related to my daughter’s time in Costa Rica. Not currently active (i.e., no new posts are being added).

Check these out. Maybe you will find something that intrigues you.

In memory of Adelaide Vaughn (1915-2018)

Yesterday I moved my Mother’s name from next year’s sick and shut-in list – that I try to keep up for the East Texas Sacred Harp Convention – over to the Deceased list. “There is no discharge in that war” (Ecclesiastes 8:8).

Funeral services for Mrs. Adelaide Chapman Vaughn, 103, of Laneville, will be held at 2 p.m., Saturday, November 17, 2018, at Smyrna Baptist Church with Brothers Charles Williams and Matthew Gholson officiating. Burial will follow in Holleman Cemetery under the direction of Crawford-A. Crim Funeral Home in Henderson. Family will receive friends 1-2 p.m. on Saturday, November 17, 2018, at Smyrna Baptist Church.

Adelaide Chapman, daughter of Robert Lee Chapman and Mariah Loutisha Holleman, was born on April 6, 1915 in the community of Oak Flat, Rusk County, Texas. She was the youngest of ten children. She joined Smyrna Baptist Church by profession of faith in 1933 and was baptized in the Stockman Spring by Elder W. G. Griffith. Adelaide married Charlie Leroy Vaughn on January 9, 1937 in Laneville, Rusk County, Texas. She passed away Tuesday, November 13, 2018 at her home. According to her hopes and desires, she avoided the nursing home and dodged the winter she hated to see coming.

Adelaide grew up on a farm, and knew the cotton culture all too well. As children “How tedious and tasteless the hours” was sometimes drafted by her and a sister to service their complaint of the thankless task of chopping cotton (and other like duties). She graduated from high school (11th grade) in 1934, married, raised children, kept grandchildren, sewed for various people, as well as her children and grandchildren. She was handy at many crafts and was an excellent cook. Her chicken-and-dressing was a notable favorite at local homecomings. Crosswords and Sudoku became favorite pastimes. She loved to read widely, from history to poetry, and often quoted poetry she had memorized in school. Her favorite poem was “A Psalm of Life” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She could recite it verbatim until she was 101 years old. After that, she began to miss some words and phrases now and then!

Mother was born to singers, lived in a singing community, married a singer, and gave birth to singers. Her Great Uncle Joe Chapman (her grandfather’s brother) was a leading figure in the community Sacred Harp singings and keyed the music until his health no longer permitted him to participate. Her Uncle Joe Chapman (her father’s brother) was an active singer who also served as an area agent for the early Cooper editions of The Sacred Harp before his early death in 1912. “Daddy Bob” Chapman (her father) was also an active singer in his younger years, though some circumstances of his later life seem to have driven his primary singing venue to his front porch! Mother attended singings (Sacred Harp and “Little Book”) almost all her life, supported and cooked for singings – but never was a singer herself. She was hard of hearing at least from in her 40s, which progressively got worse. She wore hearing aids. At singings she was always a listener, and a pretty inconspicuous one at that. If you didn’t know her, you may gone to singings with her and never knew it.

When Mother was a young girl, her father would lay on the porch, leaning against an upended straight-back chair, singing Sacred Harp songs. He made some effort to teach her, but she said she just wanted to run and play. She was the “baby” of the family likely a little bit “spoiled.” Not paying attention as a girl, not singing as an adult, nevertheless the notes one of her favorite songs – one that her Daddy tried to teach her and probably never knew he accomplished, Return Again, No. 335 in The Sacred Harp – were indelibly etched in her memory. She might not sing at the singings, but she could (and would) sing at home “fa-fa-la-la-fa-fa-sol-fa-la; fa-fa-la-sol-fa-fa-fa” from memory into her 100s. She and I sang it together (words, too) at her house several times, sitting side by side in the easy chairs.

Mother’s three song choices for her funeral reflect some of the spectrum of her musical preferences and interest. A grandson will sing The Pearly White City. The congregation will sing What a Great Day, a song written by her late husband and daughter. Those in the congregation who know the “4-notes” will sing the notes of Return Again, and all the congregation will be invited to sing the words.

All who come will be welcome and appreciated. Those who can’t come will be respected and appreciated. We thank you all for your prayers and well wishes.

Online obituary at Crawford-A. Crim Funeral Home web site.

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

ABOUT

I am pastor of Old Prospect, a Baptist Church that meets near Mt. Enterprise, Texas. My wife and I have two adult children and two grandchildren. I was ordained to the ministry in 1983, am a tent-making minister, and worked in the education industry (now retired). In addition to family, church, and work, I am active in Sacred Harp singing, and also write songs in this style. I have a long-time interest in history and genealogy. I am the former editor of a Baptist newsletter styled The Baptist Waymark and a founding editor of The Trumpet (no longer in publication). To some extent Seeking the Old Paths blog functions as an electronic successor to The Baptist Waymark.

Two important mentors to me were Louis Asher and J. W. Griffith, both of whom were once my pastors. They were historians and seminary professors who had much to do with nurturing my predisposition toward things historical. Though I rejected the seminary path as outside the pale of New Testament orthopraxy, I hold them in very high esteem as men, preachers, teachers, and historians. Above all in the flesh, I honor my father as the great influence in my life.

PUBLICATIONS
• “The Noted Singer and Music Instructor”: A. N. Whitten and the Harp of Ages, 2020
• Angus McAllister Stewart: “Man of God, Friend of All Mankind,” and the Founding Father of the Free Will Baptist Church in Texas, 2017
• Songs Before Unknown: a Companion to The Sacred Harp, Revised Cooper Edition 2012, 2015
• Thaptology: Toward a Christian Theology of the Disposition of the Dead, 2015
• History of the Old Prospect Baptist Church, Sand Flat, Rusk Co, Texas, 2014
• Rethinkin’ Our Thinkin’: Thoughts on Sacred Harp ‘Myths’, 2013
• A Sheaf of Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs, 2009
• A History of Smyrna Baptist Church 1873-2008, (with J. W. Griffith) 2009
• A Better Paradigm for the Study of Baptist History? (with Nathan Finn, Mark Osgatharp) 2009
• Materials Toward a History of Feet Washing among the Baptists, 2008
• Minutes of the Mt. Carmel Baptist Church, Rusk County, Texas: Oct 1868–Nov 1871, 2006
• Approaching 150: a Brief History of the East Texas Musical Convention, 2005
• Unaffiliated Landmark Baptist Churches Survey: a Listing of Unaffiliated Independent Landmark Baptist Churches, 2001
• American Baptist Association: a Survey and Census of its Churches and Associations, 2001

• Washing the Saints’ Feet in Hymning the Lamb: Hymns on Feet Washing written by or used among the Baptists, 2013 (manuscript, not printed)

MEMBERSHIPS

• Georgia Baptist Historical Society (now defunct)
• J. H. Spencer Historical Society
• Texas Baptist Historical Society
• (lapsed member of the) Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies

CONTACT
rl_vaughn -AT- yahoo.com

PURPOSE
The purpose of this blog is glorify Jesus Christ while posting thoughts about things that interest me. The main themes of the blog, based on my interests, will be the Bible and Baptists, songs, hymns, and history. Announcements, current events, and such like will creep in from time to time.

VERY BRIEF DOCTRINAL STATEMENT
Foundational truths
All fundamental doctrines grow from two foundational truths – that God is and that He has revealed Himself in the sixty-six books we call the Holy Bible. God is. The Bible is inspired.

Fundamental doctrines

• All things were created by and exist by God, who reveals Himself as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
• The work of God in the world through Jesus Christ is the central truth of the Bible.
• Salvation is a need of man and a work of God.
• The gospel is how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures.
• The gospel is to be preached throughout the world.
• The Son of God was born into this world of a virgin, lived sinlessly in the flesh, died on the cross and rose from the grave. He has promised to return again.

No rights reserved. All content on this website (except that owned by a third-party) is public domain.

(If you wish to know more about my doctrinal statement or other matters, please contact me by e-mail.)

Guidelines

Thanks for visiting Seeking the Old Paths. I welcome interaction from our readers. I’d like to hear your perspective. I try to run a “free speech” blog so folks can exchange their ideas without fear of being censored or blocked. But a few “rules” are in order. Please keep the following in mind:

1) All are free to share. It is best to keep your comments reasonably short. This encourages the conversation rather than hinders it, and is a blessing to busy readers.

2) Be respectful of others – even if you have a strong disagreement with them. It’s OK to disagree but try not to be too disagreeable! Don’t “flame.” A flame is an attack on someone personally. Keep your discussion on a high plane about the Scriptures or other relevant subject matter, and on topic. Avoid ad hominem arguments.

3) Please use an upper case “G” when speaking about different Christian perspectives of God. Do not write “the god of Arminians or the god of Calvinists.” God in the Bible is a proper name, whether you agree with the other commenter or not.

4) Stay on topic. I won’t be censoring topic-specificity if you don’t violate a couple of important rules; but an on-topic discussion is more fruitful. Vigorous on-topic debate, beneficial information, and intelligent discussion are welcomed.

5) I reserve the right to remove any comment for any reason or no reason. That is: my blog, my reasons! But if you are nice, all will go well. The only comments subject to immediate deletion will be cursing, explicit language, spam, links to vile material, and over-the-top accusations against fellow commenters. Spam comments will be removed, including spam links to other sites and blogs. Comments that are irrelevant advertisements will be removed. Links to verification of information you cite are welcomed.

6) Anonymous comments are allowed, but do not misuse your anonymity for “sneak attacks,” gossip, lies, etc. Observe all the rules that other guests follow. If there is anything deemed inappropriate your comment will be removed.

7) I prefer that questions for me that are unrelated to the post topic be handled by email. Clicking on “About” in the header will take you to a page with my email link.

8) No rights reserved to my personal teaching and opinions. All my content on this website is public domain. However, this does not apply to material owned by a third-party (such as quoted material), or material used with the permission of others. 

Thank you for reading “Seeking the Old Paths.” Thank you for your input.