Marriage and Springfield Baptist Church, Augusta, GA
Rev. GH Dwelle married three of my ancestors in Springfield Baptist Church
August 13, 2023, Springfield Baptist Church (SBC), Augusta, GA, will celebrate its two-hundred and thirty-sixth anniversary. The church was founded in 1787, and has celebrated this momentous occasion on the second Sunday in August for as long as I can remember. My family’s roots in SBC go back to the 1800s.
I was baptized there under the pastoral leadership of Rev. C. K. Steele, nineteenth pastor serving from 1945-1950. I moved north in 1961 then began an active, long- distance-member relationship in 1971 with its twenty-fifth pastor, Rev. Emmett T. Martin, Jr., who served for 36 years. It was this long association with SBC and Rev. Martin that afforded me the opportunity to research church records dating back to the 1800s.
Like many southern Black Baptist Churches founded during and after the Civil War, Springfield Baptist Church adopted many of the white patriarchal rules that shaped governance, membership, behavior, and status. For example, take a look at the entry for 1901. This is laughable today and even when I was a child.
The two exhibits below are the result of research I did for the 200th SBC Church Anniversary and show more of the various rules SBC followed and/or changed as they determined what kind of religious institution they would become.
