How did we get our start?

The following history has been curated by Alice Blake.

On January 30, 1841, fourteen Baptists (8 women and six men) met to organize a church and adopted a resolution to form a Presbytery to constitute a church on the first Saturday of March. Due to bad weather, that meeting took place on Sunday, March 7, 1841, and the Baptist Church of Griffin was founded with these members: Albert G. Colbert, Catharine Colbert, A.B. Reid, James Butler, Aley Butler, Eleanor But, Pitt S. Milner, Pamelia N. Milner, Margaret Smith, Latitia Falkner, Francis Tornell, Mary Tornell, Eleanor Tornell, and Samuel Tornell.

During the meeting of the Presbytery in 1841, Reverend Spencer Stamper preached from John 3:3 [“Jesus answered and said unto him, ‘Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.'”] and Reverend Joshua S. Callaway preached from Song of Solomon 1:10 [“Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.”] At a meeting the next week, the church called Brother Callaway to be their pastor. Recent research revealed that founding member Pitt Saunders Milner was a nephew of Joshua Sandford Callaway, the first pastor of this church, whose sister was Pitt’s mother. Pitt’s brother Benjamin Mosely Milner built two houses that still stand on South Hill Street (570 and 708). 

In 1845, the church took possession of the lot on Solomon Street that Gen. Griffin had designated for a Baptist church and erected “a suitable House for the Worship of God” in 1846. This small wooden building cost about $1,500.00.The church minutes state that Reverend Campbell, who was called to the church in 1853, “served the church two Sabbaths in each month.” It is likely that other early pastors served more than one church at a time. Most pastorates were short-lived, lasting from one to a few years.

In 1859 the church lot was divided into smaller lots to be offered for sale. One purchaser was Henry B. Holliday, father of the infamous “Doc” Holliday, John Henry Holliday. Proceeds from the sale totaled “near Fifteen thousand Dollars.” Thereafter, “a suitable lot was purchased and a building Committee appointed.” Mr. Rabbitt, an Atlanta architect, drew plans and Mr. McElfresh, a Marietta building contractor, were hired. The property purchased was located on the south side of Taylor Street between Hill and Eighth Streets, but the church soon sold the western part of the property and began construction at the corner where the church building is located today.

The church building was completed by June 1861 when the building committee was thanked and dismissed. The cost was about $16,000.00 According to Blanche Westbrook, “the new church was a great bare building, with a ceiling 4 ft. too high, stiff backed pews, plain glass windows with green outside blinds…The ‘heating? plant’ was composed of two big wood burning heaters, at the end of the isles [sic] nearest the ‘amen corners,’ nearest the pulpit. The long stove pipes extending to the chimney flues in the wall between the auditorium & vestibule. The pipes 10 or 15 ft. above the isles [sic] & anchored to the ceiling with wires. As heat rises, the extra 4ft. of ceiling may have been warm, but the congregation shivered.”

Only two years later, the church paid off its debt and hosted the Georgia Baptist Convention, a remarkable achievement in the middle of the Civil War. The Christian Index, in the June 29, 1863 issue, published a letter from J.P. Milner: “…I propose to say something about the Griffin Baptist Church; and first, I am glad to say that we are out of debt. The cost and expenses of our new house reaches nearly twenty thousand dollars, which is now all paid, together with all arrearages to our pastor. So I trust we can say we owe no man anything, but to love one another.”

Watch our page for more history as our year of celebration continues.