Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS 423
Though a devout and faithful minister, Mr. Springer is best remem
bered as an educator. At Walnut Hill, on the Mallorysville road, some
four miles from Washington, he established a school of high character,
which was known far and wide. Boys were sent to him from Augusta,
when the old Richmond Academy there was flourishing in pristine
vigor. John Forsyth, afterwards governor of Georgia, United States
_ senator, and minister to Spain, was one of this number. Jesse Mercer,
the great Baptist divine, also attended the school at Walnut Hill. Mr.
Springer was at one time president of the board of trustees of the acad
emy in Washington. He taught school in various places before com
ing to Georgia and was recommended for work on the frontier by Gen.
Andrew Pickens, an elder in the church at Long Cane, South Carolina.
He was a native of Delaware and a man in the prime of life when
ordained to the ministry under the Presbyterian poplar. He lived only
eight years after entering upon his labors as a minister. Mr. Springer
died soon after preaching the funeral sermon of Hon. John Talbot. On
account of subsequent changes in boundary lines to property in this
neighborhood, the grave of Mr. Springer is supposed at the present time
to underlie the main highway. He was originally buried in his garden
at Walnut Hill. Mr. Springer was a man of gigantic stature, weighing
over 400 pounds. In this respect he was rivaled by only two men in
Georgia at the time of his death.- Dixon H. Lewis and Sterne Simmons.
It may be stated in this connection that the separate organized exist
ence of the Presbyterian Church in Georgia began with the creation of
the Presbytery of Hopewell on March 16, 1797, at Liberty Church, nine
miles west of Washington. This church was afterwards removed. It is
today represented by Woodstock Church in the county of Oglethorpe.
But while Dr. Springer was the first evangelist to be ordained in
Georgia, he was not the first evangelist to enter the state. We are now
speaking of Presbyterians. This credit belongs to Rev. John Newton,
who, in 1785, two years after the Revolution, organized the historic old
Presbyterian Church of Lexington. This time-honored landmark is
probably the oldest church in the Synod of Georgia.* The name by
which the church at Lexington was first known was Beth-salem; and at?
the time of organization it was located some two miles distant from the
present site. Mr. Newton, who was the first Presbyterian minister to
preach the gospel on the frontier belt of Georgia, served the church as
pastor for twelve years. When he died, in 1797, he was buried in the
old churchyard; but, one hundred years later, in 1897, his body was
taken up and reinterred in the Presbyterian cemetery at Lexington
Mr. George C. Smith, the.present clerk of the session, assisted Mr. New
ton's grandson in accomplishing this removal. The original agreement
between pastor and people, executed in 1785 when Mr. Newton first took
charge, is still in the possession of the church. The munificent salary
which the pastor was to receive, according to the terms of this contract,
was fixed at fifty pounds and twenty shillings per annum.
Mr. Smith is the custodian of a precioiis keepsake in the nature of
a little book, containing the texts from which this pioneer divine
preached while pastor of Beth-salem Church, from 1785 to 1797; and
*Ibidv pp. 26-28.