by Emily Miller, 2022 Undergraduate Summer Research Fellow in Lived Theology

Having spent my last blog post discussing people who might have made the church split at Charlottesville Baptist more difficult, this week I want to refocus on a man who fought hard for First Baptist Church on Main Street’s Independence: the Reverend Fairfax Taylor. Born on June 1, 1816 in Charlottesville, Fairfax Taylor was the son of Bennett and Grace Taylor. Taylor bought his freedom prior to the Civil War and used that freedom to urge black liberation in Albemarle political and social circles. Taylor was considered a major radical for the nineteenth century, advocating for black inclusion on local juries and at the University. To provide a clearer picture of how this would have appeared to community members at the time, the first African American student to attend UVA, George Swanson, was not admitted until 1950, fifty-five years after Taylor’s death. 

Fairfax Taylor was a member at Charlottesville Baptist Church, as well as one of the original ministers at First Baptist Church on Main Street, back when it was called Delevan Baptist. According to manuscripts available at the Albemarle County Historical Society, Taylor was “instrumental” in the separation agreement between the Park Street and Main Street churches. During dealings with the two church committees, Taylor often spoke on behalf of the black congregants, and was able to do so quite well; he could “not only read and write but [had] some knowledge of grammar,” according to Freedmen’s Bureau records, something unusual for African Americans of Charlottesville at the time. 

While Taylor identified as a Baptist, he also served as the sexton at Christ Episcopal Church starting around 1859. According to church records, Taylor might have even been the first sexton at Christ Church, as his is the earliest name listed in the position. Much like at Charlottesville Baptist Church, black members of the congregation at Christ Episcopal were segregated to the balcony of the church during services, and like First Baptist they eventually petitioned to separate during World War I. Taylor remained employed by the church until December of 1883, and was possibly followed by his son, James T. S. Taylor.

One of nine children and the only boy, James followed in his father’s footsteps and was involved with local politics. He was elected to the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1867, but did not have his father’s support in the election. When the time came to nominate a delegate, Fairfax endorsed Judge Rives, who was a radical white man. Fairfax believed that an African American would not have the “oratory skills or education” (according to manuscripts) to be an effective delegate, and advised that for the sake of representing African Americans properly, a white man should be sent. Regardless, James was nominated anyway and served on the Convention.

Fairfax Taylor’s legacy of activism and persistence permeates throughout the Charlottesville community today. A small road by Martha Jefferson Hospital was renamed Taylor Road in his honor in 1993, and his grave (pictured above) was rededicated in 2013. I had the honor of going to visit his grave just a few days ago, and was struck, similarly to last week, by the physical closeness of this history to where I live now. Hidden beneath the busyness of Charlottesville today, more and more I have found stories of unrelenting faith, courage, and the desire for freedom in our city. Taylor’s story reminds me of what Pat Edwards said just a few weeks ago when I visited her at First Baptist Church on Main Street: the original members were motivated by their reach toward freedom, a spiritual exercise of resilience and fortitude. Not too different, I’d wager, from the reach toward freedom Paul describes to the Romans in his Biblical letter: “Creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

Special thanks for this post goes to Michael Dickens, who I had the pleasure of speaking to about the history of Christ Episcopal Church and about Farifax Taylor. Some information for this article is taken from his book, Like an Evening Gone: A History of Christ Episcopal Church, Charlottesville Upon the Occasion of Its 200th Anniversary.

Learn more about the Emily’s Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship in Lived Theology here.

The Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia is a research initiative, whose mission is to study the social consequences of theological ideas for the sake of a more just and compassionate world.

by Emily Miller, 2022 Undergraduate Summer Research Fellow in Lived Theology

Volunteering at the Albemarle Historical Society just the other day, I had a casual conversation with the librarian about the ways that Charlottesville was “ruled” by particular prominent families in the nineteenth century- certain last names come up over and over in her and my own research of local history. “Everyone was kind of related to everyone,” she told me- and for the history of First Baptist Church, I don’t think this sentence rings more true than for the Cabell family.

The history of Cabell influence in Virginia traces back to William Cabell, who came to the Jamestown settlement in 1726 from England. After spending time exploring the land that would later become Nelson county, Cabell received an initial grant of 6320 acres from King George I. Eventually, his land ownership would grow to exceed 40,000 acres of land in Central Virginia, thus beginning the Cabell legacy. 

Cabell Hall of UVA is named for Joseph Carrington Cabell, who was recruited by Jefferson in the initial planning for UVA’s development. Joseph Cabell was strongly committed to upholding the institution of slavery in Virginia and, like his nephew, white supremacy. Records located at various UVA libraries discuss the Cabells’ dealings with enslaved peoples, one of which being the 1820 census of slaves- taken when Joseph Cabell was thirty two- pictured in part below.

According to Alan Taylor, UVA Professor, Joseph Cabell was particularly unforgiving in his management of slaves, “treat[ing] slaves as investments… he shifted and sold them to increase his profits, slighting their family relations as of little concern. When the estate manager, George Gresham, balked at the proposed changes as disruptive, Cabell wanted to fire him.” According to Taylor, Cabell would frequently have his slaves whipped or beaten, and slaves would frequently run away from the Corotoman Estate, where Cabell owned a share.

Joseph Cabell’s nephew, James Lawrence Cabell, was a professor of science at UVA, and eventually became the first president of the National Board of Health. In the meantime, Cabell wrote The Testimony of Modern Science to the Unity of Mankind, which highlighted his affirming beliefs about both eugenics and, namely, white supremacy. James Cabell also “solved” the University’s problems with obtaining anatomical subjects for study by encouraging the grave robbery of deceased, formerly enslaved African Americans at the University.

The power the Cabells had- over land, enslaved people, and understandings of race and science in Virginia- becomes more tangible when exploring their direct impact on First Baptist Church. According to the essay The Education of William Gibbons by Scott Nesbit, the first black pastor at First Baptist Church on Main Street, William Gibbons, was likely enslaved by none other than Arthur Gibbons, who is the brother in law of James Lawrence Cabell. Gibbons began preaching informally at Charlottesville Baptist while he was still enslaved in 1844 (likely as an aid to a white preacher, according to Nesbit), and became the official pastor at First Baptist Church on Main Street in 1868. William Gibbons would go on to marry Isabella Gibbons, a teacher at the Jefferson School, and Gibbons Residence Hall at UVA is named for the couple.

William served as an aid of sorts to Arthur Gibbons, and through social connections of Arthur’s was able to obtain an informal education that would have far exceeded most other African Americans of the day, earning him great respect in the church. However, Nesbit writes that at that time “often students would “teach” African Americans about racial hierarchy through acts of violence that interrupted black community life and reinforced blacks’ vulnerability and consequent dependency upon whites.” Orra Langhorne, a 19th Century writer for the Southern Workman magazine, wrote regarding William Gibbons that “it was rather amusing to the white boys… to see a Negro so anxious to learn.” It’s well worth noting that James Lawrence Cabell was teaching eugenic beliefs at UVA at the same time that William was enslaved there.

During the same year that William Gibbons became the preacher of First Baptist on Main, the congregation members were working on securing a church building. According to Richard I. McKinney in his book Keeping the Faith, there was a great deal of difficulty securing the deed for the church from a certain P. Cabell (I have had trouble finding this man’s first name, but McKinney is clear that he is of the Cabell family). The matter took five years to settle, as the buyers had to negotiate continuously with Cabell about specifically how much was owed to him and his assignees.            

Anyone who attends UVA now can recognize the Cabell name. But before first hearing about James Lawrence Cabell in a theological bioethics class I took this past year, and before learning the history of First Baptist Church, I only knew the name as an academic building with a library that I liked. To find that the Cabells were a picture of domination in Charlottesville- over those enslaved and over the city itself- makes me think deeply about the land I walk on everyday here, for a long time owned in part by a family that went to great lengths to preserve white supremacy.

Learn more about the Emily’s Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship in Lived Theology here.

The Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia is a research initiative, whose mission is to study the social consequences of theological ideas for the sake of a more just and compassionate world.

by Emily Miller, 2022 Undergraduate Summer Research Fellow in Lived Theology

In order to set the stage for the many interweaving threads that form the contemporary complexities of First Baptist churches on Main Street and Park Street, let’s begin at a point in history that now only exists on paper: the original Charlottesville Baptist Church. In establishing some framing first, we can set the stage to dive deeper into the specific people and events that bring life and meaning to the congregations today.

1820 marks the first records of Baptist services taking place in Charlottesville, led by Reverend Daniel Davis at the Charlottesville Courthouse. Finally formally established in 1831, the Charlottesville First Baptist Church was located at the corner of Fourth and East Jefferson Streets. The original Charlottesville Baptist Church was home to many prominent Baptist Virginians, including Dr. John A. Broadus, former president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; the two founders of the first college YMCA; and legendary Baptist missionary Lottie Moon, whom I will cover in more depth in a later blog post. 

By 1863, at the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, Charlottesville Baptist had approximately 800 black members, who by some accounts outnumbered the white congregants, despite the fact that black members were segregated to the balcony of the church. On April 20th, 1863, just four months after Lincoln’s issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation, the black members of the church issued an application through white church member C.L. Thompson to leave the church and form their own congregation elsewhere. I had the opportunity to sit down with Pat Edwards, historian at First Baptist Church on Main Street, who gave three main reasons for the split: the anxiousness of the black members of the congregation to become educated, their eagerness to take hold of church leadership that they had always been denied, and the realization that Emancipation could mean true freedom in more ways than one. The letter given to the governing board of Charlottesville Baptist by Thompson is below.

However, the break was not exactly clean. The formation of an independent church by black members with the conditions they set forth was a contested matter until over a year later in July of 1864 (in the meantime, the black members of the congregation met in the basement of Charlottesville Baptist). In fact, the black members made some concessions; namely, that the new black church had to have a white pastor—a Virginia law passed in 1832 made it illegal for African Americans to worship without a white minister present. The first three pastors at First Baptist Church on Main Street—Reverend J. Randolph, Reverend H. Fife, and Reverend J. George— were all white men. Reverend William Gibbons, who was formerly enslaved at UVA and in other parts of Albemarle county, became the first black preacher at First Baptist Main in 1868.

In the meantime, the two First Baptists experienced several location changes. Black congregation members had already been meeting separately in the parent church as well as the old Delavan Hotel, also called the “Mudwall” Building, located on West Main street. In 1868, the members of the new black church bought Mudwall, and in 1883 the new church building was completed as it is on Main Street today. As for First Baptist Church on Park Street, the building moved in October 1853 from Fourth and Jefferson streets to Second and Jefferson streets. On February 2nd, 1977, after plans for a new building had already been made, a fire destroyed the church and the current building was later erected on Park Street. It’s worth noting as well that Mt. Zion First African Baptist Church, now located on Lankford Avenue, is an offshoot of First Baptist on Main that separated during the nineteenth century, and that Jefferson Park Baptist Church, now located on Jefferson Park Avenue, is a church plant of First Baptist on Park (both offshoots will be covered in later posts).

Reading the bare-bones history of it all, I imagine more questions than answers come up in the minds of the reader (they would for me, at least). Who, truly, are the people behind these religious movements? How does this story intertwine with Civil Rights, integration, Charlottesville? As we go deeper and deeper each week, the picture will become clearer. Next week, I’ll introduce the Cabbell Family of UVA fame, and the ways that their influence shaped the history of UVA, Charlottesville, and most importantly, First Baptist Church.

Learn more about the Emily’s Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship in Lived Theology here.

The Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia is a research initiative, whose mission is to study the social consequences of theological ideas for the sake of a more just and compassionate world.

by Emily Miller, 2022 Undergraduate Summer Research Fellow in Lived Theology

The day I first found out that Charlottesville had two First Baptist Churches, it felt like something of a footnote. I was attending a lecture on racial reconciliation for a CIO leadership program, and the speaker was discussing the tendency for homogenous racial groups to stay together, particularly in faith communities.

“There’s actually two Baptist churches in Charlottesville–Main and Park–who used to be one, but split, and now are two,” he said. “And they’re still segregated today.”

And with that, the lecture moved on, and there was nothing more to say about the two First Baptist Churches. I sat still, admittedly having stopped paying attention too closely and instead thought about the two churches. First Baptist Church on Main Street was just a few blocks from where I was living at the time of the lecture. I drove by it nearly every single day. I knew people who attended First Baptist Church on Park Street. And yet, I had no idea–and frankly at the time, no reason to care–about the deep, profoundly complicated relationship between and histories of each of the congregations.

I was dumbstruck. Charlottesville had become my city, and I claimed to be someone who was socially aware of what was happening within the city limits. And still, right under my nose was a story that I would come to find reverberated across the culture of Charlottesville, UVA, the state of Virginia, and even the Southern Baptist Convention.

With the fellowship opportunity from the Project on Lived Theology, my digging began. Mornings spent between classes in downtown Charlottesville at the Albemarle Historical Society became my newest obsession, and every visit has unlocked something new: tales of heroic activism in people like Fairfax Taylor, the closest thing to Virginia royalty in the old-money Cabell family, and even a murder involving a local church historian. Each intertwining thread, when carefully untangled and woven back together, forms a microcosmic narrative reflective of the imbalance that exists in the (dare I say, increasingly) separate two Baptist churches of the United States: black and white. 

And now, with the start of the summer, I’m eager to become a mouthpiece that brings the truth to life. All of the church history is here, in our city, but it’s also disconnected: profound authenticity hides within a vast number of newspaper clippings, dusty old books, penciled-in family trees, and court records. I’m hoping to begin to produce a narrative by the end of this summer that brings all the pieces together in such a way that we can tell the story beyond a footnote.

In the midst of it all, I’m met with an essential question: where is the kingdom of God in this story? Where is the Jesus of liberation? We’re talking about churches after all. I say truthfully that a dim yet distinct undercurrent of hope has infused every account of church history I’ve read. I sense a strong spiritual passion–what Richard McKinney describes simply in his account of First Baptist on Main Street as “Keeping the Faith”– permeating the history of civil rights in Charlottesville.

I can’t wait to dig deeper.

Learn more about the Emily’s Undergraduate Summer Research Fellowship in Lived Theology here.

The Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia is a research initiative, whose mission is to study the social consequences of theological ideas for the sake of a more just and compassionate world.