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Historical Highway MarkersFirst Baptist Church of MidlothianO-81
The First African Baptist Church of Coalfield was constituted on 8 Feb. 1846 with six white and 54 enslaved and free black members from Spring Creek Baptist Church, formerly Cox’s Meeting House. The congregation, required by law to have a white pastor, initially met about a mile southeast of here in a log building at the Midlothian Coal Mining Company coalpits. After the Civil War, the church called its first black pastor and joined the Colored Shiloh Baptist Association. The congregation purchased land here after a fire in 1877, built a new sanctuary, and renamed itself First Baptist Church of Midlothian. This is the oldest African American congregation in present-day Chesterfield County.
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References/Bibliographic Citation: Richmond Enquirer, 25 Dec. 1845. Richmond Daily Dispatch, 17 April 1877. Chesterfield County Deed book 60: 327-328. James Barnett Taylor, Virginia Baptist Ministers, ser. 2 (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1859). First Baptist Church of Midlothian: https://www.fbcm1846.org/our-story Bettie Woodson Weaver, Midlothian: Highlights of its History (1994). Barbara Irene Burtchette, “A History of the Village of Midlothian, Virginia, Emphasizing the Period 1835-1935” (MA Thesis, University of Richmond, 1983). Bethlehem Baptist Church, 200 Years, 1790-1990 (1990). Jeffrey M. O’Dell, Chesterfield County, Early Architecture and Historic Sites (Chesterfield County Planning Department, 1983). |