Untitled - the Digital Library of Georgia

428 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS
"The Act incorporating the Kiokee Baptist Church was signed by
Edward Telfair, Governor; Seaboard Jones, Speaker of the House, and
Nathan Brownson, President of the Senate. It is dated December 23,
1789, seventeen years subsequent to the actual time of organization. The
first meeting house was built where the town of Appling now stands.
Daniel Marshall became the pastor. He served in this capacity until
November 2, 1784, when he died in his seventy-eighth year. Abraham
Marshall, his son, continued his work.
"When this pioneer minister moved into the State, he was the only
ordained Baptist clergyman within its bounds; but he lived to preside
at the organization of the Georgia Association, in the fall of 1784, when
there were half a dozen churches in the State, hundreds of converts, and
quite a number of preachers. His grave lies a few rods south of Appling
Court House, on the side of the road leading to Augusta. He sleeps
neither forgotten nor unsung, for every child in the neighborhood can
lead the stranger to Daniel Marshall's grave."
On December 23, 1789, the pioneer Baptist Church in Georgia was
incorporated by an act of the Legislature under the name of "Anabap
tist Church on the Kioka,'' with the following trustees: Abraham Mar
shall, William Willingham, Edmond Cartledge, John Landers, James
Simms, Joseph Ray and Lewis Gardner.*
Georgia during the colonial period, was an asylum exclusively for
oppressed Protestants. Consequently, it was not until a full decade
after the Revolution that even the smallest beginning was made in
Georgia by the Church of Rome. The first house of worship to be erected
by Catholics in Georgia arose in 1796 on the frontier belt of Wilkes
County, not far from the site of the present Town of Washington. Our
authority for this statement is the Right Rev. Benjamin J. Keiley,
Bishop of the Catholic See of Savannah. Says he: t " The cradle of
Catholicity in Georgia—so far as regards the first building for divine
worship—was at Locust Grove, in what was then the county of Wilkes.
Near the close of'the eighteenth century a few Catholics came from
Maryland and settled at Locust Grove. Their reason for leaving Mary
land was no credit to their neighbors. They were visited at irregular
intervals by priests, but in 1799 a French priest, Rev. Mr. Sonze, came
from San Domingo, and remained for some time. He erected the first
chapel for Catholic service in Georgia. In 1821 Bishop England visited
Locust Grove, at which time the old log church was taken down and a
frame building erected. Father O'Donoghue was pastor until Decem
ber, 1822, when Rev. Patrick Sullivan was appointed by Bishop England.
Excellent schools were established by these Catholic colonists, and our
great commoner, Alexander H. Stephens, received there his early train
ing. Father Peter Whelan, the farmer-priest, as he was called, was
pastor at Locust Grove for eighteen years. Locust Grove suffered from
the stories of the wondrous fertility of the Mississippi Valley and most
of the colonists left only to meet disaster, failure and death in what
was then the Far West.'' In 1801 an act was passed by the Legislature
incorporating the Catholic Church of Savannah. Its charter members
* "Marbury and Crawford's Digest," p. 143,
t "Landmarks, Memorials and Legends," Knight, II, pp. 1053-1054.