Information Sheet

 

 

R         Central Gravois Baptist Church (Gravois Mills, Mo.).

419                  Record book, 1881‑1903.

                                    One volume.

 

MICROFILM

 

 

 

This is a record book of the Central Gravois Baptist Church at Gravois Mills in Morgan County, Missouri.  The records include minutes of church business meetings, 1881‑1903, mem­ber­ship records, ca. 1881‑1902, and miscellaneous church papers, 1895‑1902.

 

The Baptist church at Gravois Mills was organized on 12 June 1881.  Twelve charter mem­bers, primarily from the Silvey and Webb families, made up the first congregation.  Meetings were on “South Brushey,” in the area where the town of Gravois Mills was platted in 1884.  Isaac Bar­ber was elected pastor, followed by James E. Sims, L. J. Boughman, and Tho­mas H. Baugh­man during the period covered by the record book.  In September 1881, the congregation adopted the name “United Baptist Church of Christ called Central Gravois.”  The name was modified in 1887 by the substitution of “Missionary” for “United” in the title.  Membership increased greatly during the 1880s and 1890s, but the church became inactive sometime after 1903.  The Gravois Baptist Church, organized in 1923, may have been a reor­ganization of the earlier institution.  It was inac­tive by 1953, when it was reorganized as the Gravois Mills Baptist Church.  All of the churches at Gravois Mills were affiliated with the Lamine Baptist Association.

 

The records of the Central Gravois Baptist church consist of a single record book which contains minutes of monthly business meetings, membership records, and miscellaneous pa­pers.  The minutes begin with the organizational meeting on 12 June 1881 and continue through 17 Sep­tember 1903.  Church business generally involved the admittance and dismissal of members, elec­tions of officers, and appointments of delegates to the annual meetings of  the Lamine Baptist As­sociation.  Occasionally the church took up charges of improper conduct by its members, which sometimes led to the expulsion of the offending individuals.  Non‑attendance, dancing and swear­ing were the most common transgressions, but there were also cases of exclusion as the re­sult of joining the Campbellite church and for fornication.

 

Membership records are included at the end of the volume.  The records begin with the founding of the church in 1881 and include revisions in 1895, 1898, and 1901.  The congrega­tion numbered about sixty‑five indi­viduals by 1898, although not all were active members.  Mis­cella­neous papers, filmed at the end of the volume, also include information on church members.  The papers, 1895‑1902, consist of letters of admittance and dismissal, and receipts for contribu­tions by the Central Gravois Church to the Lamine Baptist Association and to the Missouri Bap­tist General Associa­tion.

 

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