Morgans Baptist Church

KM-9

Morgans Baptist Church, earlier known as Goose Creek Church, was organized in 1771 and is the oldest-existing Baptist church in Bedford County. The congregation, consisting of black and white members until the 1860s, met along Goose Creek and in several other locations before moving here in 1882. James and Elizabeth Burroughs, on whose Franklin County plantation Booker T. Washington was born into slavery in 1856, were members of this church who departed in 1841 when the congregation split over the issue of supporting missionaries. The present sanctuary opened in 1925. At the northwest corner of the cemetery is a 19th-century sign rock directing travelers to Greer's Ford and Hales Ford.

Department of Historic Resources, 2021

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Harold B. Oyer, A History of Morgans Baptist Church, 1771-1971 (Paragould, AR: White Printing Co., 1971). Robert B. Semple, A History of the Rise and Progress of the Baptists in Virginia (Richmond, 1810). John Aspund, Universal Register of the Baptist Denomination in North America (Boston, 1794). Lula Jeter Parker, Parker’s History of Bedford County, Virginia (Bedford: Hamilton’s, 1988). Kenneth E. Crouch and 200th Anniversary Committee, The Early Trails of the Baptists: A History of the Strawberry Baptist Association, 1776-1976 (1976). Ann B. Miller, “A Survey of Early Virginia Road Stones: Sign Rocks, Milestones, and Related Objects” (Charlottesville: Virginia Transportation Research Council, 2009). https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/20217 Carole F. Lacy, “Bedford’s Historic Sign Rocks,” Bedford Genealogical Society Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 1 (Feb. 2016). Richmond Dispatch, 1 July 1900. Morgan Edwards, Materials Toward a History of the Baptists in the Province of Virginia (1772).