Primitive Baptist Church and Family History
Research Assistance for Yalobusha County, Mississippi
CHURCHES:
LOOSASCOONA
Baptist worship began in Mississippi in the 1780s when Elder Richard Curtis came out from South Carolina and settled with a small flock on Coles Creek above Natchez. Spain ruled the country, Roman Catholicism was the state church, but for awhile all went well with Protestants in private worship. Then word got out that Curtis was performing marriage ceremonies, taking in converts, and even talking about building a church. In a government crackdown, five or more persons found together in a religious capacity were subject to arrest. He ignored the warning but escaped, it is said, through the offices of a half-Indian convert, Aunt Chloe Holt, who roused him in the night with a horse and saddle and provisions for his journey. At the end of Spanish rule, Curtis returned to Mississippi and spent the rest of his life with the Baptists in Adams County.
In the half century following this rude beginning in Mississippi, a great revolution swept over Baptists everywhere, the Fuller Heresy, as the Primitives called it, or the advent of the missionaries with their charge to evangelize the world. Baptists began with a stern predestinarianism, which among Southern Baptists, organized in the 1840s, gave way to prevalence of grace and open communion. The old remnant held on to total depravity and mans incapacity to restore himself to favor with God. They rejoiced in Election, Gods choosing whom He would, and left it to the mystery of love that some are saved, some lost. Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and ordained you. This heady doctrine provoked an extraordinary reaction in both life and literature in England in the 17th century. O Eternity! Eternity! cries John Bunyans Man in the Iron Cage. How shall I grapple with the misery that I must meet with in Eternity! Men lived on the edge, some went madwhile others lived gloriously and preached like Bunyan. The Primitive Baptists today are a fragmented part of this experience.
Loosascoona Primitive Baptist Church at old Airmount east of Coffeeville is a remarkable survivor, in both church organization (still with regular services) and in an old building perhaps a century and a half old. No one knows when it was built. In 1839, the Yalobusha Baptist Association in central Mississippi split in two in the controversy between old and new. Five churches broke away to form the Loosascoona Primitive Baptist Association. I am not of you, one elder spoke out at the meeting, and that it may be manifest that I am not of you, I now go out of you. And so it was in Yalobusha County, as throughout the state, that the old Baptists withdrew to their hills and hollows, a small but sturdy remnant to carry on in their own way.
The church organization at Airmount lasted for a century, but with membership down to only four families in 1938, services were discontinued. The doors were closed, the house was given a new tin roof, left to itself and forgotten. Undergrowth moved into the clearing. Then in 1965, one surviving member had a dreamhe dreamt of going to church again in the woods with his father. Under the leadership of William Tyler Dub Wortham and Guy Shaw of Coffeeville, Loosasaoona was brought back to life. The Murphree family, old settlers of the county, joined in. (David Murphree who died in 1838 Yalobusha County's only Revolutionary War soldier and grandfather of Dennis Murphree, Governor of Mississippi in 1927 is buried beside the church.) Thanks to the tin roof, the old structure was still sound. The road was cleared, a tree removed from the church door, and a pastor called. Today Loosascoona has a regular service on first Sunday afternoons and an annual homecoming and Old Harp singing on the fourth Sunday in September.
The Primitives, overlooked in the bustle of new Baptist. brothers, are an instance of survival and retention of character through centuries of change. In simplicity of life and in the old songs and sparse dignity of ritual, they approach the Mediaeval and mystical. Godliness is a matter that cannot be understood by the carnal mind, says church historian Benjamin Griffin of Holmes County. It is a mystery, a great mystery-impossible to communicate except to those whose hearts have been circumcised, ears unstopt, and eyes opened by the power of the living God.
John Bunyan, a 17th century Baptist, conceived of man's life as a pilgrimage. I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of, says Mr. Standfast at the end of his journey, and wherever I have seen the print of his shoe in the earth, there I have coveted to set my foot too.
SHILOH
Shiloh Church was constituted on June 23, 1835, with the following members, viz., Lemuel Beene, William Beene, Jesse Beene, James Menasco, Sarah Beene, Francis Beene, Mary Beene, and Elizabeth Abel. Elders Francis Baker and Moses Crowson formed the presbytery.
ELAM
Elam Church was constituted on September 25, 1847, with the following members: Johnathan Danham, Milbary Danham, John Danham, Elizabeth Danham, William A. Carr, and Virginia Carr. Elders E. A. Meaders, Elisha Moore, and Simpson Parks formed the presbytery.
BETHEL
Bethel Church was constituted in Yalobusha County, on Saturday before the third Sunday in June 1910, with the following members, R. A. Ford, George Benson, Nannie Martin, and Maud Frost. Elders A. B. Morris and D. J. Neal formed the presbytery.
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