Dale County AlArchives Photo Place.....Ariton Baptist Church  June 23, 1976
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Christine Thacker CGT714@AOL.com February 22, 2005, 3:11 pm

Source: The Southern Star
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                  Special Memories      

  by Mr. Robert Dean 

The following description of the early Ariton Baptist Curch was given by Mr. 
Robert Dean, who has attended the Ariton Baptist Church all of his life.

Back when the church was built the mothers brought their children and put them 
on a pallet over in the corner of the church.

Mr. Robert Dean recalls as a young boy his job Was to raise the windows before 
each service and prop them up with sticks and when it was time for service to 
start it was also his job to ring the bell, calling families to gather for 
worship service.

Mr. Dean gives the following description of the church in the early days: "As 
you walk up to the church, there was a small porch about six feet wide with two 
entrance doors going into the church. Walking through those doors you would 
walk down the isle to the platform area. The seats were crude slatted wooden 
benches about 12 feet long. Between the long benches and the windows there were 
short benches that would probably seat four or five people. Looking from the 
preachers stand back to the entrance was where you could see the old pot 
bellied stove that would keep the church warm in the winter time. Looking to 
the right of the preacher's stand, you would see the foot peddle organ and over 
on the side there were two benches where the choir would sit. I guess it would 
seat 8 to 10 people. There was a side door that went out to the graveyard and 
by that door there were three benches that we called the AMEN CORNER and mostly 
the deacons set over there. The interior or the church was bare wood. I don't 
remember it being painted. but the outside was painted white. My grandfather, 
James Dean, donated the property for the cemetery because one of his sons died 
and of course at that time there were only a couple of people buried out there. 
Out next to the church the old one room schoolhouse and that's where I started 
to day school back in those days."
SPECIAL MEMORIES
"Rev. Fmn was my pastor back then and he baptized me and of oourse that was 
joinin' the church too. I remember the first baptizing pool was down by the 
spring. They built it up to form a pool of water enough to baptize folks in. 
The second one (baptizing pool) was made out of old wood planks stacked on top 
of each other and they stuffed rags in the cracks and the water would run in 
and swell the wood enough to hold water while they baptized folks. The third 
one was made out of bricks located out back where Carter Manufacturing is 
located now. I would imagine that a person could probably find some of the old 
bricks still out there if they went out there and looked for them. 

I remember Christmas one year, we had a tree that was so tall it touched the 
ceiling in back or the church and you know, we had kerosene lamps on the walls 
to see by night!

When the church first started, we only had church once each month, then we had 
church every other week, and before we moved out of the old building, we had 
church every week.
We didn't have electricity or cars back in those days, so most every body 
walked to church. My family walked three quarters of a mile to go to church. 
Those that lived a long
way off would drive mule drawn wagons to church and occasionally you would have 
a surrey drawn by a horse, to bring someone to church, but for the most part we 
walked

In 1916 and 1917, my sisterS, Mother and Lula and a cousin and I went off the 
Newton to school and attend the Baptist Collegiate Institute. We rented a house 
across the street from the school and my Daddy would drive his wagon over to 
Newton to bring us food. He would drive over and stay all night and drive back 
the next day because it was a long trip from Ariton to Newton by wagon. At that 
time this was the recognized Denominational School.

1991-Ariton Alliance  ( the Newspaper was a Monthly Newspaper, Established 
1991, by Dr.Charles W. Gann , the Paper is no longer in business , All articles 
from this Newspaper are from the files of Mary Vic Paramore of Ariton. )



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