Missionary Baptist Claims Regarding
Davis Prairie Church, formed by
members excluded from Bethlehem Church
History of Franklin Association, 1880, by W. P. Throgmorton,
pp. 21-23.
Throgmorton, in his history of Franklin Association, page 21, says,
"Mt. Zion, now called Davis Prairie, located in Williamson county.
It was formed by a minority coming from the old Bethlehem church.
In compliance with the request made by the Bethel Association at
its meeting in 1838, the Bethlehem church at its April meeting in
1839, took up the question of missions. The churches had been
requested to say whether they would fellowship the Baptist Board of
Foreign Missions and its various branches. Bethlehem after taking
up the matter laid it over till her May meeting of the same year.
Then it was taken up and the church by a majority vote decided that
she would not fellowship the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions.
There was, however, a minority in the church who could not submit
to such a decision. They went farther and declared non-fellowship
with the majority who by their vote had changed the ground of the
church."
In July the minority held a meeting, at which they called for a presbytery from the Salem Association of Tennessee to examine them. The presbytery came, and was composed of Elders Elijah Maddox, William Ferrell, and John Borum, who declared them an orderly United Baptist Church under the name of Mt. Zion.
Their articles of faith, given by Throgmorton, clearly show their departures from the articles of faith on which Bethlehem Church and Bethel Association had been constituted.
The names of the minority thus constituted into a church were as follows: Wilfred Ferrell, Mary B. Ferrell, Hezekiah Ferrell, Martha J. Ferrell, Timothy Teal, Elizabeth Teal, Abraham Keaster, Polly Keaster, Lewis Keaster, Polly Leathers, Edmund Jones, Anna Rich, Drury A. Mosely, Salina Corder, Manning Campbell, Maria Campbell, and Lorenzo D. Hartwell.
