Mexico Weekly Ledger
1936
 (Centennial year )

A CENTURY OF PROGRESS

DAVIS FORK BAPTIST CHURCH

Something has been said, in these sketches, of early church beginnings.  The first church to be formed in Mexico itself, was the Davis Fork Regular Baptist Church, organized on May 16, 1840. 

As has been told, the Hopewell Baptist Church was formed west of the city, on August 6, 1836, and the Mexico Methodist Church, that observed a centennial in 1933, traces its earliest beginnings back to meetings at the John C. Martin home, northwest of Mexico, held first, according to the early data of that church, in 1833.

The original membership of the Davis Fork Regular Baptist Church consisted of John A. and Nancy Pearson, Edward and Eliza Beatty, Isaac and Jane Ford, Zachariah and Malinda Jackson, husbands and wives, Mary Pearson, Mrs. Julia A. (J.B.) Morris, and Jane Herrin.

An early history of Audrain County records that “The organization was effected at the Hopewell Church through the efforts of Elders Thomas Peyton Stevens, Theodore F. Webb, Archibald Patterson, and Jabez Ham, with the aid and counsel of other brethren, among whom was John Rothwell, William Jones, John Green, August Creed and Hezekiah Jones.”

The records are checked readily from the early history of the Hopewell Church, which was written by Rev. J.S. Jesse, of this city, a number of years ago, from original source material, and the early church minutes.

His grandfather, Rev. William Morgan Jesse, was an organizer and early pastor of the Hopewell Church

The early Hopewell church minutes show that, on August 1839, “Brother John A. Pearson, asked for a letter of dismission and the letter was granted.” At the November meeting, it was recorded, “An objection having been made to Brother John A. Pearson having a letter, as agreed on last meeting, the action of the church was taken under  reconsideration. The church ordered that he is furnished with said letter in accordance with the constitution.“

At the December meeting, letters were granted to “Edward and Eliza Beatty, Mary Pearson and Nancy Pearson, and Julia Morris.”  This was the beginning of the anti-mission movement in the early Hopewell Church, that culminated the following May in the organization here in Mexico of the Davis Fork Regular or anti-mission Baptist Church.

A continuation of the division in feeling in the early day is shown in the July 1842 Hopewell Church minutes, which set out that “By a petition of Brother Edward Beatty, they agree to consider and say whether they will give up the first Sunday in each month to the Predestinarians, to have it or not.” And the August meeting minutes show “The petition is rejected.”

The records of the Davis Fork Regular Church show that John A. Pearson, father of the late Rufus S. Pearson, who had served as the first clerk of the Hopewell Church, was also its first clerk, and that he served as deacon for 35 years, and for most of that period was also trustee and clerk.

The first structure of worship erected by the Davis Fork Church was on the site of the present city hitch lot, opposite the Avalon Apartments, and Rev. J.S. Jesse is one of those who recalls that frequently all day services were held there, with several ministers attending, and as one finished a sermon another began one. For in those days, congregations were accustomed to spending several hours at a church service, and ministers were not expected by their listeners to limit their remarks to 20, or at most, 30 minutes

.This structure was used by other early churches of that time, the Presbyterian Church, formed in 1851, being one of those to use it until its own church, on the site of the present one, was built in 1857 and 1858. Later, it was used for years as a carpentry shop.

In 1873, the Davis Fork Church erected a brick house of worship, on East Monroe Street, in recent years occupied as a garage, and now as a produce firm room. This structure cost $2700, and was “erected largely through the instrumentality of Elder Caleb Guthrie, who circulated the subscription list.”
Others among its early ministers were Samuel D. Gilbert, Benjamin Owen, John J. Lindsey, Theodric Boulware of Fulton, James W. Dudley,who later built up the Berea

Baptist Church, Caleb Guthrie, W. A. Rothwell, later president of Mt. Pleasant College at Huntsville, E.A. Burnham, P.L. Branstetter, J.E. Lee and Wilton J. Sears.

One prominent feature of this congregation, the early records show, “is the discipline attendant upon the character of its members.

 Their government for-bids the defrauding of creditors, allowing children to attend balls, theaters and other places of a worldly nature and, in anything which is not in accordance with the example set by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, they are solemnly prohibited from engaging. Their religion shines forth brightly in the confession they have declared."

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This sketch was copied from the Mexico Weekly Ledger, February 13, 1936, p5 c1,2,3,4& 5