Here we lose sight of the Silver Bluff Church, just as the First
African Baptist Church, of Augusta, Georgia, better known as the
Springfield Baptist Church, comes into being. Jesse Peter had secured
standing and recognition for the First African Church, at Savannah,
Georgia,[44] and Henry Francis had been ordained for the Ogeeche
Church by him and Andrew Bryan and Henry Holcombe. It was natural,
then, that he would wish for his work at Silver Bluff the standing and
recognition which had been secured for the work in and about Savannah,
Georgia. In order to obtain this boon, and have his work in touch with
that near the seacoast, it would be necessary to transfer its place of
meeting from the State of South Carolina to the State of Georgia,
where he had a friend, who was able to bring things to pass. It is in
this way alone that we account for the beginning of the First African
Baptist Church at Augusta at the very time when the Silver Bluff
Church disappears. The curtain falls on the Silver Bluff Church, with
Jesse Peter as pastor, when the church is reported as in a flourishing
condition. The curtain rises, and again we see a flock of devoted
Christians, with Jesse Peter as pastor, but they are twelve miles away
from Silver Bluff, South Carolina, receiving from Abraham Marshall and
another white Baptist minister the regulating touches which gave the
body standing and influence as the First African Baptist Church, of
Augusta, Georgia.
Here is what Benedict says of the body: "This church appears to have
been raised up by the labors of Jesse Peter, a black preacher of
respectable talents, and an amiable character. It was constituted in
1793, by elders Abraham Marshall and David Tinsley. Jesse Peter,
sometimes called Jesse Golfin, on account of his master's name,
continued the pastor of this church a number of years, and was very
successful in his ministry."[45] If, as we presume, the Silver Bluff
Church is still with us, in another meeting-place and under a new
name, the oldest Negro Baptist church in this country today is that at
Augusta, Georgia, having existed at Silver Bluff, South Carolina, from
the period 1774-1775 to the year 1793, before becoming a Georgia
institution.