Ed. — Archived from the Sunday, Nov. 17, print edition.
BY JANE BLOODWORTH ROWE
BLACKWATER — It took a lot of courage to be a Baptist in Colonial Virginia, where freedom of religion was nonexistent and residents were required by law to remain loyal to the Church of England.
Still, the people of Blackwater defied the law to break from the Anglican church and form a Baptist congregation. The church survived and thrived, and its modern members this past month observed the 250th Anniversary with a special service and outdoor activities for children.
Susan Creamer, a church officer, notes that the church has grown and prospered in recent years. She credits the current pastor, Dr. Donald L. Hardaway, and said more young people are attending the church under his leadership.
In the early 1700s, law-abiding southern Virginia Beach residents attended Anglican services at Pungo Chapel, but because Blackwater was so remote, the church leadership allowed residents to meet in each other’s homes at approved times and under certain conditions.
For this remote section of Princess Anne County, though, the culture was about to change. The Baptist Church, which was well established in the Rhode Island colony, pushed southward and into northeastern North Carolina.
Then, courageous itinerant preachers moved northward across the state line and brought the new religion into Creeds and Blackwater, where some residents embraced it and formed what is now Oak Grove Baptist Church.
In the 1770s, some members left to form Blackwater Baptist Church. Creamer isn’t sure why they split, although it’s rumored that they were expelled from the mother church for playing cards and possibly drinking.
“But that’s just the rumor,” Creamer said.
William Sorey served as the first full-time minister of Blackwater Baptist, and the congregation erected a small frame building that was destroyed by fire in1837. Undeterred, the members bought 4.5 acres for $45 in 1846 and built a second building.
That building serves as the sanctuary of the present church. An early pencil drawing of this building, which depicts a small four-windowed wooden building, has survived and hangs on the wall.
The church steeple and stained-glass windows were added in 1905, and Deacon Curtis Shirley, a lifelong church member, recalls that those stained glass windows were the church members’ pride and joy.
“Of course, we didn’t have air-conditioning, so those windows were our air conditioning,” Shirley said. “And it would take two or three of us little country boys to raise them, and then someone would have to put the stick under them really quickly.”
The boys depended on the window stick to keep the windows from sliding down and shattering.
Apparently, not too much changed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Shirley said that his father could remember the shelter where church attendees parked their horse-drawn buggies during worship, and baptisms were done in Blackwater River until 1950.
Shirley also remembers that men and women sat on separate sides of the church when he was a boy. People dressed up to attend church and conducted themselves very formally. Children were to be seen and not heard, and the congregation still frowned on any dancing, drinking or card playing.
The average church attendance was 28 in 1945, but it had risen to 75 by 1955. The church underwent extensive renovations in 1949, and it now includes classroom buildings, a social hall and a baptistry pool.
Now, the church has about 600 members, and it has attracted some of the newer residents who are moving into the community, Creamer said.
The dress code in the modern church has relaxed and attendees can wear jeans, and today’s members aren’t quite as strict with children as the older generations were.
At the church celebration on Sunday, Oct. 6, however, the congregation honored their past by organizing traditional children’s games that had the kids out tossing hoops and chasing buttons.
“And they enjoyed their games,” Creamer said, “although they are used to being locked up on their phones.”
© 2024 Pungo Publishing Co., LLC
