Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church to celebrate 150th year

By Lynn Hotaling

Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church in Willets, founded in June 1852, will celebrate one-and-a-half centuries during morning worship services Sunday, Nov. 3. In addition to recognition of the church's former pastors, the service will include special music and will be followed by a covered-dish dinner.

James Parris, A.J. Hall, Thomas Henson, James Crawford, William Carson, John Brown, William R. Crawford, Anna Crawford, Margaret Brown, Oliff Crawford, Mary Henson, Syntha Carson, Syntha Hooper, Mary Carson, Esther Carson, Mary Ensley and Mary Beard were the founding members of Mt. Pleasant, and Parris, Hall and Thomas Henson were the first deacons. L.B. Mingus was the first pastor.

An offshoot of Scotts Creek Baptist, Mt. Pleasant has given rise to both Ochre Hill (1890) and Balsam (1907) Baptist churches.

Church records exist from the date of Mt. Pleasant's founding and were kept for years in bound journals, said Dennie Mathis, who has attended Mt. Pleasant all his life and is currently deacons' chairman. Minutes were handwritten, he said, and "vary in quality depending on who was the church secretary."

"From time to time you can see the writing and spelling get worse and then they'd get a new clerk and it brightens up," Mathis said.

Mathis found out from reading the old books that a black woman named Lucy joined Mt. Pleasant 10 days after it was founded and that several black people were members before the Civil War.

"They were probably slaves and were received as full members," Mathis said.

Mt. Pleasant was first located slightly east of where it stands today. The church moved to its present location around 1882 and was built on property donated by Thomas Henson. Thomas Queen and G.W. Crawford also offered land, but church members chose Henson's property, Mathis said. The current sanctuary was completed in 1937.

The old record books offer detailed glimpses of early religious life, Mathis said, and include accounts of members who were "churched," which meant they were excluded from the church.

"He was churched for cussing and mistreating his family," Mathis said.

One 19th-century member was excluded during the Civil War for "saying mean things about his country," Mathis said.

"It was just like a court," he said.

Another longtime church member and Mt. Pleasant deacon Pearison Henry remembers that his grandfather was churched and didn't go back. As Henry tells it, his grandpa and Ranzy Crawford were loading wood "back when Champion Paper had a woodyard at Willets" when they found a pint of liquor.

"They got drunk and danced and had themselves a time," Henry said. "Come Sunday, Ranzy goes back to church and turns Grandpa in.

"They churched Grandpa, and he never did go back," Henry said, adding that Crawford confessed and was forgiven.

"They were still putting people out (of church) into the 1930s; after (World War II) everything changed," Henry said.

Mathis echoed that sentiment, saying that people don't attend church like they once did.

"I can remember we'd have revivals, and the house would be absolutely full. We'd have chairs in the aisle, and people looking in the windows," he said. "Nowadays you have 35 or 40 and that's about it."

Talk of days gone by is sure to be plentiful during the church's Nov. 3 event, and Mathis said he hopes former members and pastors will turn out to help celebrate Mt. Pleasant's 150th birthday.

Current deacons, in addition to Mathis and Henry, are Ike Fisher, Jack Hoyle, James Conner, Vance Styles, Kenneth Dean and Chas Mathis. Mt. Pleasant's pastor is Frank Brooks, and the church's oldest active member is Robert Dean, 88.

Back to Archive: 10/24/02.