Earliest Recorded Baptists in Union Parish Louisiana Submitted for the Union Parish Louisiana USGenWeb Archives by T. D. Hudson, 3/2005 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ************************************************ ================================================================================== Earliest Recorded Baptists in Union Parish Louisiana Prepared by T. D. Hudson and Gene Barron ================================================================================== We have no record of the religion of the earliest European inhabitants of what is now Union Parish Louisiana. The Honeycutts, Farmers, Colvins, Lyles, and Feazels, who all arrived between 1790 and 1814, probably had to attend religious services in Ouachita Parish. Even as late as 1830, there is no record of but a handful of permanent white settlers in the region. However, this changed with the re-opening of the Ouachita Land Office in Monroe in 1835, and by 1836 settlers began to pour in the "Piney Hills" from Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. Since the above-mentioned earliest inhabitants settled in the region around the modern communities of Downsville and Point, it is likely that they may have formed a Baptist Church there. However, no record of any such church has yet been found. ================================================================================== The following list gives the earliest-known documented Baptists who settled in what is now Union Parish. The dates beside their name indicates the time they are known to have resided in what is now Union Parish. ================================================================================== ================================================================================== Elder Lawrence Scarborough: 1820s - 1846 ================================================================================== Lawrence Scarborough was born in 1767 in Edgecombe County North Carolina, son of Major James Scarborough who fought for the patriots in the Battle of Kings Mountain during the American Revolution. Lawrence followed the Scarborough family migration from North Carolina to Burke County Georgia in the latter 1780s, and he lived there and then in Bulloch County Georgia in the 1790s and early 1800s. He moved quite early to Mississippi Territory, settling in Jefferson County by the 1810s. He left Jefferson County Mississippi soon after 1820 and then traveled around south Arkansas and north Louisiana. He became acquainted with people in Claiborne Parish, whose parish seat was then at the Town of Russelville. However, the records indicate that by 1829, Lawrence Scarborough had settled on Bayou Corney in northwestern Union Parish, some four miles south of what is now Spearsville. By clearing a substantial portion of it, Scarborough acquired the legal right of "Pre-emption" on some 200 acres on the north/northeast side of the Corney. He apparently kep this as his primary residence for the next twenty years, although he traveled throughout Claiborne Parish Louisiana and Union County Arkansas, where his son John Scarborough owned and operated a store or other establishment at Champaignolle on the Ouachita River. Lawrence died at farm on the Corney in October 1846. He reputedly had five wives and twenty-five children. He was survived by his widow, Sarah Cann Scarborough, and nineteen children who lived in four different states. Lawrence Scarborough was a Baptist minister and farmer. As the only known white resident of what is now northwestern Union Parish in the 1820s and early 1830s, I do not think there were any nearby churches in those early years. However, Scarborough's farm on the Corney lay only eight miles due east of what was then the Claiborne/Ouachita parish line. Although that portion of Claiborne Parish was also not extensively settled until much later, there were several Baptists located further south in Claiborne, towards the parish seat at Russelville (south of Homer). Our only knowlege of Scarborough's Baptist ministry comes from the history of Claiborne Parish published in 1886 by Harris and Hulse. They secured Rev. J. B. Davis to prepare an article for their history. In his "History of the Christian Church in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana", Rev. Davis writes: "In about 1827, Lawrence Scarborough, began to preach to the people of Claiborne Parish, the Bible; nothing more or less as the only rule of faith and practice for Christians. This doctrine being to some extent an innovation, on the one preached by the representatives of his brethren, a rumor which followed him from Mississippi was made the basis for charges against him. A committee was appointed to investigate the matter, who after a careful investigation of the case, honorably acquitted him. But some of his brethren were not satisfied, and he (Scarborough) believing his teaching more offensive than his practice, withdrew from the church to avoid further trouble, and a number of his Baptist brethren withdrew with him. Scarborough being poor and living some distance from the brethren of Black Lake Church, could not be with them often. And after a time most of the brethren who withdrew with him went back to the Baptist Church. This movement not being contemplated things remained for sometime in rather a chaotic state. But Scarborough afterwards moved into Claiborne Parish, and John Murrell... built a church near his own residence, and in this house, about 1840, the congregation met in their own church, and commemorated the death and sufferings of Christ. As disciples or Christians, they discarded all unscriptural names an dpractices and took as a motto the words of Chillingsworth, Campbell and Stone, "the word of God as a lamp to our feet in the pathway of life," offering to meet and unite with any and all on this, the one and the only foundation for the universal union of the children of God. Many ugly and offensive names were applied to us then, as now, but we relied on the promise of God, and cared for none of those things. A few years after the erection of this church, Scarborough passed to his reward, leaving a band of christians numbering about sixty around this church, and a considerable number in the northeast corner of the parish, near the State line. He was full of days and good works, and has gone to his reward. John Scarborough, son of Lawrence Scarborough, who had preached some previous to his father's death, now took his father's place, and labored for the disciples in word and doctrine with varied success for several years. At one time this church numbered as high as seventy communicants, and there were other disciples in the Northeast part of the parish, in Union Parish and in Arkansas, where Scarborough lived. The disciples in other parts of the country, hearing of the disciples here, sent evangelists to see and help them. Among those who came was a man named Smith from New Orleans, and Stephenson from Little Rock, Ark. There were no jars between these visiting strangers and the disciples here, but unity, thus demonstrating the important truth that those who take the Bible along as their guide can meet as brethren everywhere. About the year 1850, John Scarborough moved to Texas and left the church without a shepherd, and not long after he left the church building was burned accidentally and the congregation went down to almost nothing. Some moved away, others went into other denominations, and others went to the world..." ================================================================================== Elder Samuel J. Larkin: 1841-1860s ================================================================================== Baptist minister Samuel J. Larkin migrated from Lowndes County Alabama to northeastern Union Parish between 1840 and 1842. Larkin first settled near Marion. It appears that soon after his arrival, he helped to found the Concord Baptist Church, which is one of the two earliest documented Baptist Churches in the parish. He served as the pastor of Concord between 1842 and 1844, perhaps for longer. He lived in Union Parish through 1860, but I have no record of him after that. ================================================================================== Elder W. J. Larkin: 1844 ================================================================================== Baptist minister W. J. Larkin also arrived in Union Parish sometime in the early 1840s. He did not reside in Union Parish in 1840, nor do I find him listed in Alabama or any other state that year. He was not mentioned in the minutes of the Concord Baptist Association meetings of 1842 or 1843. However, at the 1844 associational meeting held near Marion at the Concord Baptist Church in October 1844, W. J. Larkins represented Concord Baptist Church along with S. J. Larkin and W. Milburne. He was likely a close relative (brother?) of Samuel J. Larkin, but I have no proof of this. Whereas Samuel J. Larkin remained in Union Parish until after 1860, I have no record of W. J. Larkin after 1844. ================================================================================== Avery Breed: 1841-? ================================================================================== Avery Breed lived in Perry County Alabama in 1840, but by 1842 he had settled in Union Parish Louisiana. He represented Concord Baptist Church at the associational meeting in 1842, proving that he joined that church soon after his arrival in the parish. He remained in Union Parish. ================================================================================== Wilson C. Eubanks: latter 1830s-1843 ================================================================================== Eubanks arrived in Union Parish by the latter 1830s and settled on property that now includes the Crossroads Cemetery in southeastern Union Parish. He established a store there, and the community of Enterprise soon formed at this location. One of the earliest roads built in the parish connected the new parish seat of Farmerville with Parker's Landing on the Ouachita River (the region near Parker's Landing soon became the village of Port Union). The second and third post offices in Union Parish were established on the same day, 2 May 1840, with Eubanks appointed the postmaster of the Enterprise Post Office. Eubanks only served in this capacity through November, and the post office closed permanently in March 1842. Apparently Eubanks belonged to the short-lived community of Enterprise, and he belonged to the Good Hope Baptist Church established somewhere in that vicinity by 1842. He and A. White represented Good Hope at the 1842 Concord Baptist Association meeting held at Bethel Church in Caldwell Parish in October 1842. That year, Good Hope only had ten members. No one represented the church at the 1843 associational meeting due to sickness, and by 1844 the church had withdrawn from the Concord Association. It probably disbanded by 1844. ###########################################################