Bertie  COUNTY  NC  Obits  Thomas Gilliam

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Jvosper489@cs.com   Jim Vosper

http://www.usgwarchives.net/nc/bertie.htm

>From the Biblical Recorder of Raleigh, NC April 20, 1844.(From film at NC Baptist Archives at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC).


DIED

On Wednesday, 14th Feb. last near Windsor, N.C., Thomas
Gilliam, Esq.

The subject of this notice was born in March 1805. He was
the son of Elder Moses Gilliam, sometime pastor of the
Church at Cashie, and his wife, of whom a most
interesting account is given in the history of the
Kehukee association, page 203, edition of 1803.  From his
boyhood our departed brother was remarkable for
steadiness of purpose, and uprightness of character.  His
mind was of a contemplative cast, and was ever piously
inclined; but it was not until 1824, soon after the
gracious outpouring with which the Baptist Churches of
Bertie were visitied, that he dedicated himself to God in
holy baptism.

In 1825 the church (at Cashie) chose him serve her as
deacon. From the time of his connexion with the church,
until the day of his departure, his walk ever adorned the
profession he had made. Sedulously attentive to his
duties as a member of the church, his seat was never
vacant at church meetings,until severe bodily affliction,
forbade. What an example is here left for those who
remain.

His heart yearned over the wants of Zion, and his
benefactions to the various benevolent objects
contemplated by the church, shew that his zeal did not
consist in profession only.  As a member and as an
officer of the church--as a citizen, as a father,
husband, brother, son, and master, our brother has left
an example well worthy of our imitation.  In his death,
those who were his nearest neighbors, alone, know how sad
a chasm their social circle has experienced.

The disease which terminated his earthly career was
tedious and painful. His approach to the grave was
gradual yet certain.  Nature shuddered, as the good man
felt that he was approaching the home of earthly hope,
and would fain have recoiled from death's embrace, but as
he approached the confines of the dark valley, he felt
the support of that arm that had so often sustained him
before, and even in the agonies of expiring nature, he
exclaimed "Christ is precious," and the immortal spirit
winged its way to the courts of celestial glory.  How
happy thus to die! --A bereaved widow and three little
children are left to mourn their irreparable loss. May a
kind Providence sanctify this painful bereavement to
their eternal good; teach them to look to that "better
world" where we may rejoin our departed friends. 


A brief poem follows.  I did not photocopy it.  Jim
Vosper.


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