Rev. Benjamin Luther Price, D.D., Rapides Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller

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Rev. Benjamin Luther Price, D. D.  On November 2, 1924, were held the services 
of dedication of the beautiful new home of the First Presbyterian Church at Alexandria.  
Coincidentally was celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the pastorate of Rev. 
Benjamin Luther Price, D. D., whose many years of labor and constructive efforts 
cover the important history of the church from a struggling beginning to the present 
the when it is the largest and most prosperous congregation of the Presbyterian faith 
in central Louisiana.

Doctor Price was born on the Price farm in Cumberland County, near Farmville, Virginia 
October 5, 1867, son of John Morton and Martha Katherine (Spencer) Price.  His parents 
were also natives of Virginia.  He is a direct descendant of John Price, one of the 
colonists who settled at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1620.  He is a descendant also of 
Colonel William Morton, a colonel in the command of General Nathaniel Greene in the 
War of the Revolution, who was marked for distinguished gallantry in the battle of 
Guilford Courthouse, North Carolina.  Doctor Price also counts among his relatives 
the Watkins family, the Morton family and Spencer family in Prince Edward and Charlotte 
counties, Virginia, and is a member of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.  
His father, a Virginia farmer and planter, was a man of thought and action, and 
influential in community affairs.  Both he and his wife were zealous members of the 
Presbyterian faith, in which they carefully trained their children.  Of the seven 
children four now are living, Rev, B. L. Price, D. D., being the youngest.

Benjamin L. Price was reared in the rural community near Farmville, attended a private 
school there and then entered Hampden-Sidney College, one of the oldest educational 
institutions of the United States, established in 1776.  After completing his academic 
course there he entered Union Theological Seminary at Richmond, where he completed the 
divinity course.  He was ordained a clergyman of the Presbyterian Church by the Central 
Mississippi Presbytery July 23, 1890, his first pastoral charge being at Glen Allan, 
Washington County, Mississippi, where he served two years, 1890-92.  In the latter year 
he took the pastorate of the Presbyterian Church at Morrilton, Arkansas.

In 1894 he was induced to take the pastorate of the church at Alexandria, Louisiana, 
his pastoral agreement going into effect the first day of November of that year.  In 
the early half of the nineteenth century Alexandria was the center of Presbyterian 
activities and the home of a Presbyterian seminary.  The principal of the seminary 
for several years, beginning in 1823, was Rev. Timothy Flint, a New England scholar 
and clergyman, one of the distinguished men of his generation.  In the years 
immediately following the Civil war, 1867-69, the chaplain and professor of English 
at the old seminary, or now Louisiana State University, was Rev. Edward P. Palmer, 
D, D., a brother of Rev. B. M. Palmer, D. D., LL. D., of New Orleans.  The old 
seminary building was burned in 1869, and no record of activities is found until 
1891.  In 1891 a small church was organized with twelve members and increased until 
it reached twenty-eight, but in November, l894, the membership had been, reduced to 
eleven and the church was in a disorganized condition when Rev. Dr. Price took the 
pastorate.  The next six years was a time of repeated discouragements and disappointments 
and struggles, but in October, 1899, a new church was dedicated and successive years 
saw steady growth and improvement.  In November, 1920, the cornerstone of the third 
and present church edifice was laid, and the building was completed and formally 
opened March 19, 1922.  This church is entirely distinct in architecture, and on 
general lines has compared with other edifices for public worship in Alexandria.

During the pastorate of Rev Dr. Price more than fifteen hundred members have been 
received into the First Presbyterian Church.  Five hundred and sixty baptisms and 
five hundred and ninety-two marriage ceremonies performed.  The church property has 
increased to a value of more than $100,000.00.  At the same time this church has 
beets in a measure a mother church and a source of Presbyterian activities extending 
out over adjacent territory.  The church on the Atchafalaya River was reorganized in 
1895 and in 1896 a church was organized at Marksville, the first Protestant 
organization in one of the oldest settlements in Louisiana.  In the summer of 1902 
the church at Bunkie was organized, these three churches forming a group and having 
one pastor.  In 1915 the church at Oakdale was organized, this being an individual 
unit, with its own pastor.

Rev. Dr. Price is not only a leader in church work its Rapides Parish, but a loyal 
and public-spirited citizen striving to the utmost to advance the moral, educational 
and general civic interests of the community.  He has been long affiliated with the 
Masonic fraternity, being a close student of its history and teachings.  He has 
attained the thirty-second degree in the Scottish Rite, served as prelate for many 
years in Trinity Commandery No. 8, and is a past eminent commander of Trinity 
Commandery No. 8, Knights Templar, at Alexandria.  He is a member of El Karubah 
Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Shreveport.  He is head clerk of the Louisiana 
jurisdiction of the Woodmen of the World, and for thirty years has been local 
clerk of Rapides Camp No. 17.

The Board of Trustees at the annual commencement exercises of the Southwestern 
Presbyterian University at Clarksville, Tennessee, in June, 1916, conferred the 
honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity upon Rev. Benjamin Luther Price.  This 
institution is now being moved to Memphis, in the future to be known as the 
Southwestern or the College of the Mississippi Valley.

Rev. Dr. Price on November 22, 1894, shortly after the beginning of his pastorate 
at Alexandria, married Miss Isabel Caroline Grady.  She was born at Mobile, Alabama, 
and reared in New Orleans.  She is a graduate with first honor of Peabody High School 
and was a member of the first class to be graduated from Sophie E. Newcomb College 
at New Orleans.  She traces her ancestral lines back to President James Madison, 
Col. Walter Page, Col. Walter Childs, the Whites, Henrys, Carrs, Lees, all of 
Virginia, and to Captain Nathaniel Abney, whose home was in South Carolina and 
who was a soldier and officer in the Revolution.  Mrs. Price, as a Colonial Dame, 
first served as the secretary of the Alexandria Committee of Colonial Daisies of 
America, resident in the State of Louisiana and was afterward chairman of the 
Alexandria Committee.  Mrs. Price has membership in the Daughters of the American 
Revolution.  She has served as vice-regent and as regent of Loyalty Chapter, D. A. R., 
and as state chaplain of Louisiana and as registrar for many years of the local 
organization at Alexandria.  Mrs. Price for twenty-eight years has been the financial 
secretary of the Up-to-Date Fiction Club, one of the most exclusive organizations 
in the city. Doctor and Mrs. Price have two children:  Miss Martha Agnes and John K.  
The son graduated from Davidson College, North Carolina, in 1922, took technical 
training in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston, and remained at 
Boston, employed as assistant cashier by Esterbrook & Company, investment bankers.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 390-391, by Henry E. Chambers.  Published by 
The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.