Here is where our Statehood was born, the Constitution being formed
here in 1819. Huntsville is our State’s first capital. Taking Mr.
Hosea Holcombe as authority, the first Baptist church organized in
Alabama was constituted within a few miles of Huntsville, in 1808.
Their constitutional membership was eleven, and Rev. John Nicholson
was their first pastor. The first negro Baptist church constituted in
this section of the State was the African Baptist Church of Huntsville,
organized about the year 1820. I say 1820, for the reason that in 1821
they are recorded as entering into the Flint River Association, with
seventy-six members. Rev. William Harris, “a free colored man,” is
mentioned as their first pastor. It seems that Brother Harris soon fell
under the influence of a white preacher, William Crutcher, and became
established in the faith of the Primitive Baptists. Over seventy
years have passed away, and still Rev. Bartlett Harris, a grandson of
Rev. William Harris, is preaching the “election of grace.” Instead
of seventy-six Missionary members, there are now about two thousand
Primitives. The Rev. W. H. Gaston is the leading educator among them.
He is a man of quiet and humble spirit, and is now trying to establish
a school at Huntsville. How we Missionaries need a school in Madison
county! Our little Missionary church seems bound hand and foot. At
this writing, Rev. Oscar Gray is pastor, and he seems to do as well as
circumstances allow.
Perhaps I cannot close this notice of Madison county more profitably
than by directing the attention of the reader to the vast consequences,
in the form of false views and false practices, which came of one man’s
decisions. Rev. William Harris decided to follow Mr. Crutcher, and now
thousands of people walk in his track as anti-Missionaries.