This association was organized in 1868, and has given more students to
Selma University than any other association in the State, nor has any
other been more liberal in its gifts of money. A calculation would,
perhaps, show that they had not paid so much as the Alabama District
and the Uniontown, but it will be remembered that those are the _giant_
associations, having 10,000 or 12,000 members, while this body has not
more than 6,000. Rev. C. Roberts, one of the founders of this body, in
his opening speech before the session of 1892, said: “When we began,
not one among us could write. We organized in Tuscaloosa, and when the
work was done, it seemed so insignificant an idea that we had attempted
to constitute and operate an _association_ that it took us two days
to accept and recognize what we had done. But see what we are now,
and what we have done! Of our own sons and daughters, we have with
us to-day teachers of the State schools, teachers in universities,
teachers of music, persons of character and of learning. I never in
my life, thought I would see so much education in black people.”
The “Jones Creek Church,” the church with which the association had
convened in the above named session, was the name borne by the white
church organized about 1830, which long ago had become extinct. Rev.
L. Brown, who now owns a good part of his old master’s plantation,
presided at this session, and Rev. I. Dawson was clerk.
Their minutes give the following churches and ministers:
_Sherman Post Office_--Galilee, Antioch, Little Zion, Mount Tabor.
_Warsaw_--Mount Pleasant, Union Grove.
_Cahaba_--Christian Valley, Friendship, Mt. Tabor, Mt. Pleasant.
_Whitfield_--Ebenezer.
_Boligee_--Mt. Zion, Bethlehem, St. Paul, St. James, Mt. Olive.
_Eutaw_--Elizabeth, Eutaw, Zion, Friendship.
_Ramsey_--St. Mark, Dowsey, Mary Winston, Jerusalem, Livingston,
Shiloh, Pine Grove, New Prospect.
_Sumpterville_--Sumpterville, Mt. Zion.
_Mt. Hebron_--Mt. Zion, St. John.
_Vianna_--New Providence.
_York Station_--Rock Chapel, York Chapel, Mt. Harmon.
_Curl’s Station_--Mt. Zion, Fourth Creek.
_Gaston_--Friendship.
_West Green_--Pleasant Valley.
_Tishabee_--Christian Valley, Little Zion.
_Gainsville_--Gainsville Second, New Bethel, Longford,
Spring Valley, Gainsville.
_Epes Station_--New Hope, Jones Creek, Miller’s Hill.
_Clinton_--Mt. Common.