Missionary Baptist Claims Regarding
the History of Nine Mile Church
The earlier church records having been destroyed by fire,
statistical information cannot be given for that period prior to
1845. [This seems to indicate that any records which the Missionary
Baptists had prior to 1845 were destroyed by fire.]
Location of Peter Hagler's home:
On Saturday before the third Sunday of June, 1829, at a little log house then standing on the west half, southeast quarter of Sec. 1, T6S R2W., where lived Peter HAGLER and wife, there were gathered together four brethren and four sisters in the Baptist faith. There were: Abner KEITH, and Sarah his wife; Van S. TEAGUE, and Rachel his wife; Peter HAGLER, and Frances his wife; Leonard LIPE, Francis JONES. Two Baptist ministers, Eli SHORT, who lived in Shorts prairie, Randolph county, Illinois; and Silas CHRISLER, who lived near Kaskaskia, Illinois, met with this little company of pioneer Baptists, and the organization was effected by the adoption of these eight members, of a church covenant, articles of faith and rules of order. The name chosen and adopted was "Nine Mile Prairie" Church, that being the name of the post-office, which is now Du Quoin. Peter HAGLER was chosen clerk of the church, and the same year a log house about eighteen or twenty feet square was built a short distance from Haglers cabin, on what was then "Congress land," afterward entered by Leonard LIPE, now owned by Hon. T.T. FOUNTAIN.
Here they held meetings monthly, to which the people would come from distances of five, ten, and fifteen miles. Peter HAGLER was licensed by the church, soon after its organization, and preached very acceptably to the church and in the surrounding neighborhoods.
After a time, Elder Robert MOORE became the pastor of the church, and served until 1833, when a serious division rent the church, which at this time contained about sixty members, and a number of members who had been received by letter from churches in Tennessee holding the "Predestinarian" doctrine, withdrew under the leadership of John S. HAGGARD, who was then clerk of the church. Prior to the time of this "split," a process of separation had been going on in the Baptist churches of Tennessee and other states. Those holding the extreme Calvinistic (or, rather, hyper-Calvinistic) doctrine, which leads toward fatalism and discourages the employment of human agencies or means in the work of salvation, could not remain in harmony with those, who, under the influence of the strong missionary spirit infused into American Baptists by the conversion to Baptist views of the missionaries, JUDSON and RICE, were impelled to put forth renewed efforts for the spread of the gospel in heathen lands. This leaven had now reached southern Illinois, and in a few years the churches were either divided or carried over to one side or the other, and have since remained as separate denomination.
While it is true that this radical difference in doctrine was the real cause of the division in the Nine Mile Church, a minor question was made the pretext for withdrawal; this was an alleged irregularity in the reception or approval of Amos ANDERSON as a candidate for baptism.
Eleven members of the church, among whom was John S. HAGGARD, Matthew and Thomas JONES, voted against his admission to the church after he had been baptized by the pastor, Eld. MOORE,--and, withdrawing, organized a new body which still continues as the old Baptist Church of Paradise Prairie, and bears the name of "Nine Mile."
Copyright 2009. All rights reserved. The Primitive Baptist Library.
