History of the First Baptist Church
Paris, Missouri
NOTE: This history was written for the Sesquicentennial Celebration [in 1981] of the First Baptist Church of Paris, Missouri. The history was written by Rev. Dallas Bundy and Rebecca Cain, with assistance given by R.I. Colborn, Susie Boone Bounds, and Michael Norman. Past histories have been written in 1956 and 1970. This history differs in facts and figures with the past histories; but from the old minutes of the church, we have used as much care as we possibly can to state the facts and impressions as we have found them.
The organization of the church was formed at the home of Eli Bozarth four miles south of Paris, on May 7, 1831, with the organization done by Rev. Archibald Patterson and Rev. Edward Turner. There is no other information about them, except that Turner was called an Elder, which probably means he was one of the Old School Primitive Baptist, and was the first pastor.
There were nineteen white charter members, and one black. Included were Edward and Lucretia Turner, Mary Smith, C.C. Acuff, John Hocker, Elizabeth Hocker, Fanny Pool, Peter and Jane Mahan, John and Mary Luney, Benjamin and Mary Luney, Paul and Sarah Heriford, John and Matilda Curry, Isaac Coppedge, and Nancy Donaldson, all white; and one Negro man named Peter.
The church was first named Bethlehem, and became a member of the Salt River Association, which included six Baptist churches in the entire Salt River Basin, which was all or part of eight counties or more. In September, 1834, the Salt River Association divided and the church joined the Bethel Association.
During the first two years of its organization, the church met most of the time at the home of Eli Bozarth. At the business meeting in April, 1832, the church thanked him for the use of his home, voted to change the name of the church from Bethlehem to the name of the Middle Fork Church near Paris, and appointed two trustees to purchase ground for the church. In October, 1832, the church minutes read:
the Church appointed Brother Edward Turner and John H. Curry commissioners to hier [sic] some person to finish raising and covering the meeting house and one dore [sic] and one window to be finished as in a workman like manner and to hier [sic] some person to put up a chimley [sic] maid [sic] of brick and chink and paint the meeting house.
Apparently, the church building was finished by June, 1833. The next year, the church was joined by a rural congregation called Enon Baptist Church of near Paris. Because of this merger, the name of the church was changed again to become the United Baptist of Middle Fork.
In the early years of the church, the congregation met on Saturday to conduct its business. The early records show that these sessions included accepting and granting church membership, even the Negroes, who were sometimes listed in the records as the property of some named church member; appointing trustees and calling pastors for the church when the pastorate was vacant; collecting contributions for the pastor's salary and for the cost of maintaining the church property (some of the offerings listed were 25 cents, 50 cents, or $1, which would have been a nice offering then); and disciplinary actions against members for immoral or improper conduct. Their rules, which were carried out, were more strict than ours today, as we see in the minutes of the business meeting in February, 1833, which reads in part:
The Church agree that any member of the Church hearing any report against another member of the Church If [sic] shall be theire [sic] Duty to go and inform that member of the report that is Against him and shall be the duty of said member to come to the next Church meeting and deny said report or acknowledg [sic] it to the Church.
In some cases the members did come while others did not come to speak about the charges presented against them.
In 1836, a lot was purchased to build a brick church building to take the place of the log cabin. Three years later in December, 1839, the church authorized the trustees to borrow $225 from the County Court at 10% per annum to build the building. Since the committee was discharged in February, 1840, the brick building is assumed to have been built by this time. It is believed that this church faced the old covered bridge located at Paris, then a stage coach ford across Middle Fork River.
Even though the church built a building, there was disharmony among the members. In August of 1840, the congregation split apparently over missions. The majority, which was the mission group, voted seventeen members out of the fellowship for having "acted disorderly and contrary to the usage of the United Baptist Church". The minority group also voted the majority group out, so Double Exclusion existed. Even though the groups worshiped in the same church building for awhile, the minority group left and began worshiping at the brick building on East Caldwell now used by Baker Lumber Company. They later built and moved to what is now Cedar Grove Church southeast of Paris.
It is impressive to realize that during all of this conflict, the church still was able to host the Missouri Baptist Convention for the first time in 1840. The second and probably last time the church will host the convention, because of today's convention size, was in 1868, after the Civil War had ended.
Several important events took place in the church during the last half of the 1850's. In 1855, the Ladies Aid Society of the United Baptist of Middle Fork was organized. A couple of years later, this group of ladies played an important role in the raising of funds to purchase the property on West Caldwell Street, just across from the Presbyterian Church. Before the membership got under way to build, in May, 1857, seventeen members of the church who lived north of Paris asked for their church membership, and formed the Salem Baptist Church with the help of the United Baptists' congregation. This church became the second church organized from the First Baptist Church of Paris. Four months later in August, the remaining members appointed a committee to purchase a lot to build a new church building. At one point, the appointed committee members who were appointed to purchase the ground were scolded by other church members for their lack of enthusiasm and were told to be more energetic in searching for a lot on which to build. The scolding must have done some good, for by January, 1858, the lot had been purchased and the committee discharged of its duties. Two months later, the church voted against buying a share in the Presbyterian Church, and the following month, in April, the church voted to build a frame house 37 1/2 by 55 feet, which was probably finished in 1860. In this building, a bell which came from a sunken Mississippi River steam boat was installed. The bell was used until 1917, when the present church structure was built. At this time, the bell was given to Frank Connelly of Shelbina, missionary to China. During the war with the Japanese it was stolen and supposedly melted down for the making of weapons.
An interesting segment from the minutes of October, 1859, shows the attitude of the church toward the Negroes. The church had allowed them membership, but it denied a black brother the right to preach.
Brother Goodrich wanted the voice of the church whether a colored Brother in good standing could have the privilege of preaching in our house or not it was the opinion of the church that they had better not allow them the privilege.
These early churches entered rules of decorum and articles of faith in their minutes. Some of the rules were: meetings were to start and end in prayer; members were to stand in the business session in addressing the church; and church attendance was required by the members. Several instances are found in the records of the church expelling a member who seemed unworthy or who joined another church. One woman was excluded from the church for stealing. The church members were to believe the articles of faith of the Scriptures, God, sin, salvation, justification, and grace to name a few.
During 1867 and 1868, some members of the church left to organize other churches. In April, 1867, the church authorized letters of dismissal to "all coloured members of this church who wish to go into the organization of a coloured baptist church at this place". The following year, in 1868, the Mt. Airy Baptist Church was organized, taking membership from the Paris group.
Baptists are known sometimes for their unpredictable business meetings, like the one on May 13, 1876. One "brother", as they were to call the men, sent acknowledgement to the church for his unchristian conduct of dancing and card playing. Another asked forgiveness for his drinking to excess. At a later time, a committee on dancing reported that they saw a certain "sister" of the church dancing, and since she did not see anything wrong, she was "turned out" of the church. The rules and consequences seemed harsh, but one certainly knew where they stood in relation to the church. It was not even uncommon for some member to ask for their name to be removed from the church membership book for what they felt was unchristian conduct.
On August 7, 1887, the congregation met in their church building for the last time, in order that the building could be torn down. During the demolition of the old building, one man died as a result of a fall of 35 feet. This new building was dedicated on July 1, 1888 with most of the $6,000 cost of the building being collected by that day. The new building was a fairly large, many gabled structure, with several rooms and the first baptistry. Until this time, members of the church were generally baptized in the river at a place known as the Palmyra Ford, but now the new church had a fine baptistry and the first two people to be baptized in it were William F. Buckner, a Mexican War veteran, and his daughter, Frances, later known as Mrs. Frank Neate.
Several events occurred in 1904. The Young Ladies Missionary Circle was organized. The Monroe Baptist Association was formed in 1904. The church helped in its organization, but disputed over joining it. After the pastor of the church pressed the members for a decision, they finally joined in 1906.
In 1913, the church again decided to build because of its growth and the need for Sunday School rooms. During the next year, they purchased land where the present structure is at the corner of Main and Locust, while voting to sell the old church property and parsonage. Two plans for the new church structure were offered to the congregation, and after one was accepted, the work began. The Missionary and Aid Society helped in the work by purchasing pews for the new building. On Sunday, June 3, 1917 the present church building was dedicated.
The building was beautifully constructed and furnished as one can easily see today. The ten art glass windows, now deemed priceless, were donated as memorials to those whose names appear on them by family members. In 1918, a pipe organ was purchased. Although the final cost is not recorded, half of the cost was paid for by Andrew Carnegie, internationally known philanthropist and multi‑millionaire, the other half was raised by the Young Ladies Missionary Circle.
During this time of planning the new building, the change of procedure in hiring the pastor was adopted. Since the organization of the church, the pastor had been called annually. In 1915, the church voted in favor of an indefinite call.
At a called meeting on September 17, 1926 the Ladies Missionary Circle, formerly known as the Ladies Aid Society before the Civil War, changed their name to Womans Missionary Society and became purely a missionary group.
The church has had several parsonages during its existence, but the early records have been lost or were never kept concerning them. Some members recall four. For many years the residences just east of the church, one being where the addition to the church now stands, were owned by the church. Both were used at various times as homes for the pastor. Around 1944, money was scarce, and the properties were sold, and the pastor rented his home for a while. After World War 11 ended, the church called Rev. Carl Hewlett as pastor. No home could be found to rent, and the family lived in the church basement for a while. At this time, the parsonage on Cooper Avenue was bought, and remained as the parsonage until the present parsonage was built in 1965 for a cost of approximately $25,000.
In 1946, carillonic bells were presented to the church by H.J. Blanton ill memory of his grandson, Jack, who died in service. At present, they are not in working order.
In 1951, the Holliday Mission Chapel was sponsored by the Paris church. The church building was built, and in 1955, the congregation organized into a church, the fifth church in which the membership of the Bethlehem ‑‑United Baptist of Middle Fork‑‑First Baptist Church of Paris, Missouri were involved in organizing.
During the decade of the 1950's, other changes came about in the church. The first deacon rotation was in 1950, discontinued two years later, resumed in 1961, and discontinued again on October 13, 1971, with the revision of the church constitution. The organ was rebuilt and moved from the center of the choir loft to the present location at the south side of the pulpit platform. On May 9, 1955, a special room was set aside for a library and Sunday School and music literature.
Since the early 1960's, the congregation had a dream of enlarging the 1917 church building. A Planning and Survey Committee was appointed in 1966 and restructured in 1972 to survey the possibility of securing land. Five years later, in 1977, the church acquired the Mary Acuff property on McBride Street. The house on this property was painted, reroofed, and other work done. The church then secured the property east of the church in an exchange agreement with Cordelia Evans. They voted to trade the Acuff property for her property and move her to that location. In 1978, the purchase was finalized, and that tract of land was again the church's property, as it had been in 1944.
Dreams of the people came true in 1980 as an architect and contractor were hired and an educational building was erected on the existing building. When completed, the new building will contain a kitchen, fellowship hall, and a class room on the lower level, and four pre‑school and two adult classrooms on the upper level, with rest rooms on each floor. The building program also consisted of renovating the existing kitchen and fellowship hall and constructing five rooms and a hallway for easy accessibility to all of the rooms. Plans are also in the program for an elevator, ramp, or chairlift to make it easy to reach the sanctuary. When the building program is finished, each part of the church structure will have been remodeled or painted since 1970, the year the auditorium was completely redecorated.
The decade of the 1970's have seen many changes in the life of the church. On May 8, 1974, the church voted to start a bus ministry. Two years later, an all‑time record of Sunday School attendance was broken with 233 attending on October 31, 1976. The same year the church voted to hire a full‑time Minister of Music and Youth, and on January 5, 1977, Michael Norman became the first person in this full‑time position. For thirty‑five years, Jodie Allen Sproul directed the music. Then in more recent years part time paid music directors were Merle Young, Mary Long Berlin, Beth Klinkenborg Goetz, and Charles Hawkins.
In addition to its work locally and in support of the Monroe Baptist Association, Missouri Baptist Convention, and Southern Baptist Convention, our church has made significant contributions to other ministries.
In World War 1, the pastor, Rev. P.D. Mangum, resigned and joined the YMCA in overseas work with the troops in Europe. In World War II, Rev. Harry McKnight resigned as pastor to join the armed forces as a chaplain. Later, in 1943, William Martin, another pastor, became a chaplain in the armed forces. At the close of World War 11, Rev. Carl Hewlett, then a major in the chaplaincy of the Air Corps, came back into civilian church work as pastor of the Paris church. Later on, he again became a chaplain in the Air Corps, and retired from that position. Rev. and Mrs. Paul Potter were released from the church in 1965 to go into foreign mission work, and were sent to the Dominican Republic and after serving only a few weeks of their second term, were murdered on the field. Tom Vanskike, a member of our church, felt the call to preach, was trained at Hannibal ‑LaGrange College, was ordained by our church, and is serving the Perry Baptist Church. Beth Klinkenborg Goetz, who was a high school teacher, was also our music director. During her work here she felt God's call to devote full time to music in churches, has completed her education, and is presently serving in Ohio. Two former pastors, Jean Osborn and Roy Kinder, are serving in associations in Missouri as Directors of Missions.
During the past four decades, the budget has risen rapidly. As late as October 1947, our church had a budget of $4,883. By 1970, the budget grew to over $25,000. Beginning with the 1975 budget of $35,265, the budget spiraled with the addition of a staff member, programs, and building program. The building program's effect on the budget can be seen from the years of 1980 and 1981 as we compare the two years' budgets: $61,077 and $98,778.
The present membership of the church is 444 of which 347 are resident members.
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The facts were current up to 1981, a historical update will be added in the future.
