Monticello records suggest a vital spiritual life in the African-American enslaved community. Men and women were baptized and attended prayer meetings. Frequently the first activities of newly freed persons included the founding of churches, and many Monticello freedmen and their descendants became ministers and lay leaders. The church was and remains a cornerstone, meeting spiritual and social needs in troubled times and circumstances. Descendants confirm the continued importance of the church and its role in binding together their communities.
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Eden Baptist Church, Pike County, Ohio, founded in 1824 by African Americans from Virginia. At least two Monticello families joined this church, whose members were active in the Underground Railroad and other antislavery endeavors. |
A page from the Treasurer's Book (1863) of Eden Baptist Church, mentioning Israel Jefferson, who purchased his freedom and resettled in Ohio in 1844. In 1873, his recollections of life at Monticello were recorded. |
Headstone of Priscilla Hemmings, head nurse for Jefferson's Randolph grandchildren, who died in the night after a prayer meeting at her house. Her husband, John Hemmings, the principal woodworker at Monticello, carved the stone. |
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Rev. Robert Hughes, first minister of Union Branch Church, founded in 1865 by freedmen who had once been enslaved at Monticello. In 1867 they bought the land for the church and school from Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Jefferson's grandson. Union Branch (now Union Run) Baptist Church flourishes today. Below left, Hughes' son, the Rev. Wormley Hughes, was a Baptist minister in Loudoun and Fauquier counties. "It was during one of these [Baptist] meetings that I was convicted of my sins from a sermon preached by Cumberland George. I was converted at a two weeks' meeting at Piney Grove." --Peter Fossett, 1898, remembering the 1830s | |
Right: In 1870 the Rev. Peter Fossett and his wife founded and paid for the building of First Baptist Church, Cumminsville, on the outskirts of Cincinnati. Relocated for highway construction, the church has grown and prospers today. "As there was no church, we find the people praying and having prayer meetings in their homes, when they were not walking twelve to sixteen miles to the nearest church. . . . They did it with patience and pride, standing the heat of the day, and the cold of the night. They did it and were glad to do it just to be in the House of the Lord. Many continued to do this until finally the Lord did hear their prayers." --Benjamin H. Carr, 1957, on the history of Rose |
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Above: Rev. Thomas Wesley Woodson, Doctor of Divinity and minister of the A.M.E. (African Methodist Episcopal) Church, preached at the funeral of poet Paul Laurence Dunbar |
At right, Karl F. Smith, shown here as a student at Wilberforce University in 1914, became pastor of the Church of Christ of Apostolic Faith and bishop of the Pentecostal Assemblies of the World. He had an active radio ministry. |
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"Women were ready, with their time, their talent, their influence and their money, to dedicate all to the upbuilding of the Church. . . . They assisted in the prayer-meetings and class-meetings and Sabbath-schools, and taught them to love the ordinances of the Church and to respect the ministry. Where there were no churches they opened their doors for public worship and gladly received the care-worn and weary travelling preachers into their families and provided bountifully for their necessities. They were not only zealous in labors, but were talented in speech. Some were gifted in prayer; so much so that persons were often convinced by hearing them pray, and were led to God and soundly converted and became useful members of the Church." --Sarah Woodson Early, from speech given | |
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