Springfield Baptist Church is a
Baptist
Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...
church in
Augusta, Georgia
Augusta is a city on the central eastern border of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The city lies directly across the Savannah River from North Augusta, South Carolina at the head of its navigable portion. Augusta, the third mos ...
was built in 1801
and is a significant historical building for its architecture, religious history, and African American heritage.
It is affiliated with the
American Baptist Churches USA
The American Baptist Churches USA (ABCUSA) is a mainline Protestant and Baptist Christian denomination. It is a reorganization from 1907 of the Triennial Convention. The Triennial Convention was renamed as the Northern Baptist Convention in ...
.
It was built in the architectural style of a
New England
New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...
meetinghouse, which is rare in Georgia. It is the oldest church building extant in Augusta and is claimed to be one of the oldest Black congregations in the U.S.
The 1801, Springfield Baptist Church was listed on the
in 1982, and the boundary of the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
-listed site was increased in 1990.
History
Architecture
"The simple, two-story rectangular wooden building has two doors at the first floor topped by two arched windows and a smaller arched attic window in the gable of the street facade. The east and west sides of the church boast first and second-floor ranges of seven wooden 12/12 windows. The interior of the church has an assembly-hall plan consisting of a shallow vestibule on the north end and a long narrow meeting hall."
["Augusta Springfield Church"](_blank)
North Georgia, National Park Service Historic Itinerary, accessed 27 Sep 2010
In 1844, the Methodists built a new brick church at 736 Greene Street.
This old meeting house was rolled on logs to the corner of 12th St and Reynolds to be given to the Springfield Baptist congregation, one of the oldest black Baptist congregations in the nation. During the
antebellum
Antebellum, Latin for "before war", may refer to:
United States history
* Antebellum South, the pre-American Civil War period in the Southern US
** Antebellum Georgia
** Antebellum South Carolina
** Antebellum Virginia
* Antebellum architectu ...
years, it had 1,000 members and was the largest congregation of any in the Georgia Baptist Association. Springfield Baptist hosted the
1866 Georgia State Freedmen's Conventions
The Georgia State Freedmen's Convention meetings, where both whites and blacks would come together to solve local problems and discuss politics, took place in 1866. The Freedmen's Convention took place in Augusta, Georgia. This was after the Civil ...
.
In 1897, the congregation built a new church on the site, in the Late
Victorian Gothic
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...
style. The former building was moved to face Reynolds Street, and they continue to maintain it and use it for special events.
Baptist congregation
The Baptist church congregation predates the building and was founded in 1787,
by Reverend Jesse Peters. The congregation claims continuous ties with
Silver Bluff Baptist Church, founded 1774–1775 in
South Carolina
South Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders North Carolina to the north and northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, and Georgia (U.S. state), Georg ...
as one of the first black Baptist congregations in the nation. For this reason, the historian Walter Brooks suggested it was the oldest black Baptist congregation.
[Walter H. Brooks, "The Priority of the Silver Bluff Church and Its Promoters", ''Journal of Negro History'' (April 1922)] The
First Baptist Church in
Petersburg, Virginia
Petersburg is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 33,458 with a majority bla ...
was organized in 1774 and also contends for this distinction.
See also
*
List of the oldest buildings in Georgia
References
External links
Springfield Baptist Church ''New Georgia Encyclopedia''
{{National Register of Historic Places
Properties of religious function on the National Register of Historic Places in Augusta, Georgia
Churches completed in 1801
19th-century Baptist churches in the United States
Baptist churches in Georgia (U.S. state)
Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Georgia (U.S. state)
National Register of Historic Places in Augusta, Georgia