$3,660
Highly important manuscript minute book from first Permanent Church Organization in Missouri and the first Protestant Church West of the Mississippi. 91pp, many both sides, housed in plain cloth-backed album with each sheet housed in old protective sleeves, entirely in manuscript in several hands. Bethel Baptist Church was founded on July 7, 1806 outside Jackson, Missouri in Cape Girardeau County by David Green and met in a small log structure on the land of Thomas Bull, one of the first Baptists in the area. A sizeable meeting house was built in 1812 and the congregation began establishing relationships, or "arms," with other area churches. This historic archive contains the original constitution, membership list, records of the minutes of monthly church meetings from August 1806 to September 11, 1852, birth, death and baptism records, and rules of decorum. The register of founding members includes 15 names, including David Green (Reverend) and Thomas English (Deacon). Seven of the founding members were women. Slaves are listed either by first names only in minutes to follow, such as "Dick as man of Robert Green, Judge of the Court," baptized June 18, 1813, or just as "two Ethiopians the property of [Al]bert Buckner." Under Spanish rule, the territories west of the Mississippi in the eighteenth-century were officially Catholic and, although a number of Protestants had settled in the districts of St. Louis, St. Charles, and Cape Girardeau, Protestant services and baptis Read more…
Auctioneer:
Leslie Hindman Auctioneers
Date:
2010-08-12