First Baptist Church.
The Church now known as the First
Baptist Church of Charlottesville was
organized on the 18 of August, 1831, with
a membership of twelve males and
nineteen females. Dr. Harden Massie
the first clerk of the Church a position
which has since been occupied by a
number of excellent men among them
were A. Pope Abell, J. W. Doplin, M. C.
Thomas S. A. Eddins and the present
incubent E. A. Peyton. It has numbered
among its pastors some of the
most famous men of the denomination.
Conspicuous among these were
the illustrious John A. Broadus, and
his famous uncle William F. Broadus,
A. B. Brown, John C. Long, and in
later days, William Harrison Williams
afterwards the well know editor of the
Central Baptist of St. Louis, Kerr B.
Tuppet now one of the prominent men
of the denomination and pastor of one
of the leading New York churches,
Dr. H. W. Tribble now pastor of the
High Street Baptist Church of this
city and President of Rawlings Institute.
The present pastor the Rev.
John B. Turpin is now in the sixth
year of his second pastorate. He was
recalled to the Church in the fall 1900.
The Church has built several houses of
worship. One soon after its organization
which it out grew in the course of
less than twenty years, another in the
early fifties and the present exceptionally
[ILLUSTRATION]
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH.
handsome and imposing edifice
which has been universally admired
for its beauty and other more important
features. This building was dedicated
last July. Its present Deacons
are M. C. Thomas, Chairman of the
Board, T. W. Bailey, B. F. Dickerson,
Dr. R. K. Flannagan, J. W. Lane, J.
C. Mathews, W. N. Wood. The membership
of the church has greatly
grown of late years and it is now the
fourth largest Baptist Church in the
State.
