Sharon Baptist Church

M-34

On this site prior to 1745 the Church of England's Raleigh Parish established Sandy River Chapel. Construction was completed on a new wooden church by 1765, some of which is believed to survive within the present building. In 1782 several different denominations began using it as a meetinghouse. It became Sharon Baptist Church in Oct. 1827 with the Rev. Daniel Witt as its first minister. Witt and his boyhood friend Jeremiah Jeter were the first missionaries for the Baptist General Association of Virginia, conducting preaching tours in eastern and western Virginia in 1823. Witt served as pastor here until his death in 1871 and is buried here.

Department of Historic Resources, 2004

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Herbert Clarence Bradshaw, History of Prince Edward County, Virginia… (Richmond, Va.: Dietz Press), 5, 14-15; Charles Cocke, Parish Lines: Diocese of Southern Virginia (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1964), 99; Charles Edward Burrell, A History of Prince Edward County Virginia: From its Formation in 1753, to the Present (Richmond: Williams Printing Company, 1922), 239-243; A Church in the Wilderness: A History of Sharon Baptist Church (n.p., circa 1993); Woodford B. Hackley, Faces on the Wall: Brief sketches of the men and women whose portraits and busts were on the campus of the University of Richmond in 1955... (Richmond: Virginia Historical Society, 1972), 122-123; John A. Garraty and Mark Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 23 vols. (New York and Oxford: Oxford University, 1999), 12:13-14; William Meade, Old Churches, Ministers and Families of Virginia / by Bishop Meade ... (1857; Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1889), 2:24-27; Woodford B. Hackley, “Two Bedford Plowboys: A Missionary Tour,” Virginia Baptist Register 6(1967): 272-283; Jeremiah Jeter, The Life of Rev. Daniel Witt, D.D. of Prince Edward County, Virginia (Richmond: J.T. Ellyson, 1875).