THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 19, 1996 TAG: 9601180119
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 328 lines
FOR GENERATIONS, it was a cornerstone of faith and fellowship for a community of farmers. Today, the rural quiet has been erased from the little hamlet that Churchland Baptist Church once served.
Those farms have given way to sprawling suburban neighborhoods, followed by shopping strips and office buildings and all the roads and traffic that go with them.
But 210 years since its first members met, the newest steeple of Churchland Baptist still rises up in the heart of the community.
It's been through one name change and several locations and buildings, but the church has survived.
And now, thanks to some dedicated souls, so will its history.
Everyone who has gone to the church for any length of time knows about that history. Members of the congregation celebrated a bicentennial in 1985 and were given weekly doses of the past at each sermon.
But the piles of records and photos and other documents that would ensure those stories for future generations had been stuffed away in closets and other storage areas.
Melba Stallings gets a lot of the credit for changing that.
Stallings had seen a closet full of ``boxes and bundles'' and was told they held old records and pictures.
``I was just interfering,'' she quipped about the day she went to the minister and told him those things needed to be sorted and preserved. And she knew just who should do it - Vivian Rayfield and Mary Waters.
Stallings learned to respect the talents and devotion of the two women during the years they worked together on the church library.
And she confesses, ``I'm real good at volunteering other people.''
The pastor took Stallings up on her suggestion and went to Waters and Rayfield, requesting that they take on the job.
That was two years ago. They've been on a long, meticulous and painstaking journey into the past ever since.
Stallings doesn't remember her two friends thanking her right away.
It took a year or more just ``sorting and getting organized,'' said Rayfield.
``It was just a matter of starting at the top and working through it.''
Waters, who had headed the library committee for more than 20 years, remembers how overwhelming it all seemed, looking at stacks of papers and newspaper clippings, folded and wrinkled out of shape or marred by rusty staples.
``It was just a mess,'' she said.
Sometimes, Waters recalled, they would unfold papers and leave them sitting under heavy objects for ``weeks and weeks'' to get them straightened out again.
But one of the hardest elements of the job was trying not to read everything they came across.
``When you start going through those papers, you want to sit down and read all of them,'' said Waters. ``So we had to teach ourselves to scan and put them in categories.''
Later they would go over them again and refine those categories, sometimes two and three times, she said.
While they were doing this, they were also trying to learn the how-tos of preservation.
They went over to Freemason Street Baptist Church in Norfolk, which they heard had a ``very nice history room,'' Rayfield said.
``We did get some ideas from over there, as to how they catalog and all,'' she said.
And, fortunately, they had the luxury of expert advice within their own church. Both Portsmouth Museums Director Elizabeth Burnell and Naval Shipyard Museum Curator Alice Hanes are members of the church.
They made suggestions, as did a librarian friend.
Rayfield and Waters got a catalog of items used for preserving historical records and photos and ordered things like rust-proof staples and special protective covers.
They learned to put acid-free tissue between the newspaper clippings they continue to collect and file of stories about the church or its members.
One day those personalities will help paint a picture of the community, just as long-gone members do for today's congregation.
For decades, Churchland's oldest families made up its membership. A few members still hail from what one minister referred to as ``Old Churchland.''
They included the Carneys, the Bidgoods, the Coffmans, the Deans, the Dukes, the Griffins, the Peakes and Ballards.
Through the years, those families faced wars together and sent up joint prayers for peace. They enjoyed the prosperity of the truck-farming heyday and then were saddened to see neighbors fall on hard times.
We see their names on Churchland street signs. We see many of them on the tombstones of the old-fashioned cemetery that sits in the shadow of the church.
If that garden of stones could talk, the stories they would tell.
Now, thanks to the history room, in many ways those stories survive.
Rayfield admits to giving in and reading those stories sometimes.
``That's one of the reasons it takes Mary and me so long,'' she said. ``We get into things and get interested in it.''
One day Rayfield stumbled across an invoice her late father-in-law had presented the church for some plumbing work he did there. She jokes that she found the invoice, but so far, no record of payment.
The church historians have framed many of the wonderful photos they have discovered - pictures of the parsonage, of a former pastor and his wife in horse and buggy and the one Rayfield laughingly refers to as the ``church's first bus trip.''
There were no buses then and no one knows if that was really the first trip. But the photo, taken in Watkins Glen, N.Y., shows a formal looking lot of some of the well-known members of Churchland Baptist - the men mustached or long-bearded, the women dressed in their Victorian finest.
Rayfield and Waters also have enjoyed perusing the lists of items purchased for the church and the financial records that a frugal treasurer - W.B. Carney - sometimes wrote on the back of old farm invoices.
And there are the little nuggets of daily life, like the meeting in which the pastor reported an ongoing problem with his neighboring farmers' animals wandering over to the parsonage grounds.
``Just the little human things is what I have found really interesting,'' said Rayfield.
Stallings said that as a housewife, she enjoyed reading the well-kept list of menus and the amounts of food needed for the large lunches that the Ladies Aid Society served to raise funds for the church and community.
There was no social services department at the time, but the village blacksmith kept the women abreast of the needs in the community, recalls Juliet Hawks, a member of the church since birth and now one of its elders.
According to the church records, at one time the woman's organization numbered 61 members. But just recently, after 100 years of service, the last three members of the Ladies Aid Society disbanded their organization.
Hawks was one of the three. The money left from their years of fund-raising was given to the church to start a scholarship fund.
In the past year, Rayfield and Waters have been joined in their work by Stallings and another church member, Liz Marchant.
``They didn't bring me into the program until they were just about bent double,'' Stallings joked.
Stallings, who joined Churchland Baptist about 35 years ago, remembers being drawn to the ``pretty little church in the pine trees.''
``It was a small church and it was beautiful,'' she recalled. ``And tourists to the area always used to comment about that church.''
But, she remembers as a ``newcomer,'' she had no real sense of the history of the church until much later.
First called Shoulders Hill Baptist, the church grew out of the preaching efforts of David Barrow and Edward Mintz and was officially formed in 1785.
It became Churchland Baptist in 1890 after that community, which was so-named probably because of the three churches it boasted, according to Hawks.
Besides Churchland Baptist, the farming village was served by Centenary United Methodist and Grove Baptist churches, said Hawks who is featured in a taped interview of older members that belongs to the history room.
Grove Baptist, across the street from Churchland Baptist, has served black residents of the community for years and the two churches share much of their early history.
At one time black and white members both worshiped at Shoulders Hill Baptist Church and it was not until the 19th century that black members broke off from the older church to form Grove Baptist.
In fact, some of the most interesting photos that Rayfield and Waters have discovered are of members of Grove Baptist at the turn of the century, and Churchland Baptist plans to have them copied for the neighboring church.
Accounts of the early years of Churchland Baptist are found in the bound records of the church, dated 1783 to 1923.
The earliest entries of those books tell of members excommunicated for transgressions ranging from ``disorderly walk'' to ``wanting to commit adultery.''
One woman was put out of the church after she had a baby six months after marriage.
``I think it shows how much we've grown as Christians,'' said Stallings. ``I think a lot of injustices were done in the name of Christ for many years. I think we need to know those things.''
And, as Rayfield points out, the same records also show how many of those same members were embraced again once they acknowledged and repented of their sins.
Sunlight now pours into the history room, all freshly painted with many of its newly discovered old photos hanging in neat groupings on the wall.
The room officially opened to church visitors last summer and Rayfield opens it most Sundays so members can drop in and browse.
But the work goes on.
It's not just the additional records they've been told are tucked away behind the choir loft. There's also the matter of preserving today what will be history tomorrow, something they have gained an even greater appreciation for as they read the stories of the past.
The church historians are urging today's members and church officials to keep all the sermon tapes and records of business meetings and deacons' meetings and to place anything over five years old in the history room.
``When Dr. (the Rev. John) Moran was minister, he had all of his bulletins bound in hardback covers,'' she said.
Those are now neatly stacked on a shelf and Rayfield hopes to find some of the missing years when the workers get to those records in the choir loft and other nooks and crannies.
Those bulletins tell of baptisms and deaths and other events in the life of the congregation.
``We're trying to encourage classes and different groups to keep their records now and their pictures . . . so that down the line when people want to know, they won't have to do all this,'' said Rayfield.
Not that she's complaining. She and her co-workers have found it to be a labor of love.
``You kind of step back into history and look at it from different points of view,'' said Rayfield.
``Mary and I both, since we've started, have felt like we were doing a service for the future.'' MEMO: Photographs bring the past back to life
An excerpt from a history by the late Rev. John Moran, who served the
church from 1954 until 1981:
As I came to Churchland I immediately became aware of two distinct
groups of people in the church often given the names ``Old Churchland''
and ``New Churchland.'' This was a fact of life, and every effort was
made to love and embrace both groups in all we did. ``Old Churchland''
consisted of members of families who had been in the area for many
generations. Until the earlier part of the 20th century, Churchland had
been an area of extensive truck farming. Most families were very
successful and their families enjoyed wealth and prosperity.
It was frequently told that payment for the old sanctuary built in
1911, a very beautiful brick structure, had been fully subscribed the
day of the fire of its predecessor. I was told by Mrs. Mattie Hathaway,
whose father, W.V. Savage, was pastor at the time, that after the fire
the men of the church gathered out front under the oak trees and pledged
enough money to build the new building.
``Old Churchland'' people were very cultured and aristocratic. They
gave to the church its tone of stability. Some had, it is true, lost
their wealth because of the opening of the Florida vegetable markets by
rail, but they had lost none of the quality of life and attitude which
had been theirs for several generations.
Many of the older people were afraid of the changes they saw coming
and expressed apprehension. However, by far most of them rejoiced in the
growth and subsequent changes, particularly when they realized that I
was pleased to continue their traditions of dignity in the church. . . .
. . . ``New Churchland'' consisted of the newer, younger families who
had come into the church from a fast-growing community between
Churchland and Portsmouth. They led in pushing for growth and new
buildings.
``I count it my great privilege to have made many lifelong friends in
both groups. We needed both groups, and on the whole, we kept both
groups. In some instances it was my privilege to know and minister to
four generations of one family.''
``Most, but not all, of the ``Old Churchland'' people are dead now,
but happily, the church still benefits from the legacy they left for
us.
Old and new Churchland mix on Sundays
A look at some of the treasures to be found in the history room:
An undated photo shows the parsonage, with its flower-lined porch,
that once stood on church property. According to the label, the home
cost the church $1,000 and first served as home to the Rev. William
Young and his new wife.
A framed copy of an 1887 church envelope that once held the $5 dues
of W.A. Bruce. The envelope reads at the bottom ``All Seats Free.''
A scrapbook of receipts and papers includes a $1.25 receipt for wood
for the church and another invoice lists items purchased ranging from
five gallons of red oil for 75 cents and 10 cents worth of lamp wicks to
a 25-cent broom.
A photo taken in 1910 or 1911 that shows the Rev. and Mrs. W.V.
Savage sitting on their horse-drawn buggy. The photo's label states the
minister and his wife were inspecting the construction of the new church
building.
A 1913 bill from the Virginia Railway and Power Co., Electric Light
Department, shows the church used $1.90 of electrical current.
A 1914 bill from John A. Morris, clothier and hatter, lists a $10
suit, a 50-cent shirt and $1 worth of underwear ordered by Pastor
Savage.
A 1915 Mother's Day poem, members believe was written by the late
Rev. Reuben Jones, is called ``Be Kind to Mothers, Boys,'' and the
minister ``respectfully dedicated'' the poem to ``Mrs. J.M. Kingman who,
though without children of her own, has been at various times in her
long and useful life, a true mother to many. . . ''
In addition to talk of lawn parties and Easter egg hunts, 1920s
records of the Ladies Aid Society tell today's church members that ``in
spite of the heat, the July meeting . . . was well-attended. Soon after
our arrival, our hostess, Mrs. H.L. Deans served delicious punch which
served to cheer, but not to inebriate.''
Photo albums of the church kindergarten classes, from 1960 to 1993.
A 1964 photo of the Rev. and Mrs. John Moran being presented ``a trip
to Palestine in observance of his 10 years there.''
ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
DUSTING OFF THE PAST
Staff file photos
This wooden Churchland Baptist Church, photographed in 1884, burned
in 1910. The same day, members pledged the money to build a new,
sanctuary.
The brick sanctuary at left that was new in 1910 later was torn
down. At right, is the church of today, built in 1963.\
Mary Waters, one of the organizers of the history room at Churchland
Baptist, recalls how overwhelming it all seemed, looking at stacks
of papers and newspaper clippings, folded and wrinkled out of shape
or marred by rusty staples. ``It was just a mess,'' she said.
Staff photos by MARK MITCHELL
An 1850 photo shows the $1,000 parsonage, with its flower-lined
porch, that once stood on church property.
The Rev. and Mrs. W.V. Savage inspect construction of the new church
from their horse-drawn buggy.
Church members pose during a group trip to Watkins Glenn, N.J.
Staff photos
by MARK MITCHELL
ABOVE: Juliet Hawks, one of the oldest members of the church, has
belonged since birth and is now one of its elders.
LEFT: Photo shows the brick church built after the wooden structure
burned in 1910.
THE MINISTERS
The ministers of Churchland Baptist Church, formerly called
Shoulders Hill Baptist:
Edward Mintz, 1785-1796
Jeremiah Ritter, 1796-1818
Smith Sherwood, 1818-1822
David Woodson, 1823-1831
Jeremiah Etheridge, 1831-1832
James Gwaltney, 1832-1833
David Woodson, 1834-35
A. Paul Repiton, 1836-37
Smith Sherwood, 1837-39
Putman Owens, 1840-42
Reuben Jones, 1842
James Fox, 1843
Reuben Jones, 1844-1848,
William Young, 1849-1855
Reuben Jones, 1855-1885
A.B. Dunnaway, 1886-1897
W.V. Savage, 1897-1931
Robert E.F. Aler, 1932-1953
John L. Moran, 1954-1981
R. Lee Carter, 1982-1987
William L. Lumpkin, 1987-88
R. Clint Hopkins, 1988-present
by CNB