Information Sheet

 

 

R         St. Francois Baptist Association.

812                  Minute books, 1918-1952.

                                    Thirteen volumes.

 

 

 

These booklets contain printed minutes of annual meetings of an association of Baptist churches in southeastern Missouri.  The St. Francois Baptist Association included about twenty congregations in Madison, Bollinger, Wayne, and Iron counties.

 

The St. Francois Association of Baptists, nearly always referred to in its own records as the St. Francois Baptist Association, was organized around 1850.  The earliest volume in this collec­tion is for 1918, when the Association held its 66th meeting in its 68th year.  The last volume in this col­lection, for 1952, marked the 100th meeting of the Association.

 

Each year in late August or early September the Association met at a member church to dis­cuss issues of faith, enjoy appropriate exhortations and singing, and attend to administrative mat­ters.  These small printed booklets of minutes sometimes also included the Association’s Declara­tion of Faith (1918), Constitution (1922), “Church Covenant” (1924), and Rules of Decorum.  They always included a statistical summary and list of member congregations, a memorial page for the recently deceased, and lists of congregational leaders and ordained ministers.

 

The booklets included reports on support for the local Will Mayfield College (until its clo­sure in the early 1930s) and other Baptist schools, hospitals, orphanages, and missions.  Social concerns, such as Prohibition and law enforcement, the establishment of Sunday schools, and the proper observance of the Sabbath, were regular topics.  A report of special note was W. A. Scott’s “Progress of Western Baptist Seminary, 1948-1949,” in the minutes for 1949.  Western Baptist was the only Baptist seminary “for Negroes” in the United States north and west of St. Louis.

 

In 1918 the Association had twenty-two member churches with slightly over 2000 indi­vidual members.  These numbers remained very stable over the years, and there were twenty member churches at the time of the 100th meeting in 1952.  The First Baptist Church of Fredericktown in Madison County was the largest congregation in the Association.

 

A name index is available for this collection.

 

 

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