First African Baptist Church - Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, USA.
N 32° 13.436 W 080° 42.401
17S E 527637 N 3565295
First African Baptist Church Marker is at the intersection of Beach City Road and Enterprise Lane, Hilton Head Island, Beaufort County, South Carolina, USA.
Waymark Code: WMYDG5
Location: South Carolina, United States
Date Posted: 06/02/2018
Views: 8
First African Baptist Church Marker is in on the right when traveling north on Beach City Road, Hilton Head Island.
Inscription, Side 1:
"This church, organized in 1862, was first located in the town of Mitchelville, a freedman’s village established on Hilton Head by the United States Army. Rev. Abraham Murchinson, its first pastor, was a former slave. The congregation numbered about 120 members when it was organized in August 1862."
(Continued from side 1)
The church moved to the Chaplin community after the Civil War and was renamed Goodwill Baptist Church.It moved to this site by 1898 and was renamed Cross Roads Baptist Church before retaking its original name; it is the mother church of five Beaufort County churches. The present building was built in 1966.
Erected 2012 by The Congregation. (Marker Number 7-37.)
From the Church Website:
"The First African Baptist Church was organized in the Village of Mitcheville on Sunday, August 17, 1862. An article published in the "New South Newspaper", dated August 30, 1862 outlined the official Ordination of Rev. Abraham Murchinson as the Church's first Pastor. It was reported that the number of members present at the service was 120, 70 of which were professing Christians under the rule of their late masters, while the others had been converted and baptized since the Military Occupation of the Island. The Order of service for the Ordination was as follows: Ordination Sermon - Chaplin H.S. Wayland, 7th Connecticut Volunteers; charge to the Candidate - Chaplin W.C. Patterson, 1st Massachusetts Calvary; Ordination Prayer and right hand of fellowship - Chaplin H. Hovey, Volunteer Engineers; and charge to the Church - Chaplin Whitehead, 97th Pennsylvania Volunteers (1). The following men served as Deacons under Rev. Murchinson: Ceasar Jones, Jim Riley, Stephen Hamilton, John Riley and Simon Grant. As people started moving to other parts of the Island, the church moved from Mitchelville to its present location and was referred to as "Cross Roads Baptist Church". As time passed, the "Cross Road" reference was dropped in favor of its organizational name "First African Baptist Church."
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