A Sketch of Early Primitive Baptist History in the State of Missouri
Baptist Beginnings in Missouri
According to most accounts, the first Baptist Church in Missouri Territory, was in the Tywappity Bottom, some ten or twelve miles south of Cape Girardeau. It is believed to have been organized in 1804 or 1805 with eight or ten members by Elder David Green, who had come from Kentucky. It ceased to meet after a space of time, but was reorganized in 1809, and was identified in belief with what is known today as the Primitive Baptists.
The second church was called Bethel, which was organized on July 19, 1806, near Jackson, in Cape Girardeau County. Its log building was the first Baptist house of worship west of the Mississippi and east of the Pacific Ocean. Here, in 1811, a great revival broke out under the labors of Elder Wilson Thompson, who was ordained by this church in January 1812. Between four and five hundred people were added to the church in a period of about eighteen months. As a result, several more churches were established in surrounding settlements.
A third church, called Fee Fee's Creek, was organized in 1807, by Elders David Badgley and William Jones, in what is now St. Louis County. This church first became identified with the Illinois Association in 1808. In 1817 when the Missouri Association was formed, it was a constituent member.
In the same year Elder Badgley, with the assistance of Elder John Hendrixson, constituted a church at Cane Spring, where Badgley had labored when the country was under Spanish laws, which labor was performed on a rock in the river. This church also united with the Illinois Association, in 1807, and remained in that body until the churches west of the Mississippi were dismissed to form the Missouri Association in 1817.
Coldwater Church was organized in 1808 or 1809, and united with the Illinois Association in 1809, and helped form the Missouri Association in 1817.
Additional churches were soon raised up in Missouri, which united with the Illinois Association, as follows: Negro Fork Church, in 1813; Femmosage Church, in 1814; Beauff Church, in 1815; Upper Quiver Church, in 1817; and Mt. Pleasant Church, in 1817. All of these were dismissed in 1817 to help form the Missouri Association later that year.
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