I spent my earliest church-going years attending Parkerson Baptist Church. The land on which the church was built had been donated by the Parkerson family, and the church was constructed in 1830. The church was located about two miles from my home on the far side of the Little Ocmulgee River, which was more a creek than a river, but it ran parallel to the Ocmulgee River which formed the western border of our county.
This church, active today and occupying the third church building, has enjoyed a long and glorious history. There are men buried in the church cemetery who fought in every war from the American Revolution to the present conflict in Iraq.
When I was growing up, the two big events at the church each year were the revival, which we called "Big Meeting," and the baptizing which took place the Sunday following the revival. On the day set aside for the baptizing, the congregation was much larger than usual. The parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends of those to be baptized were in attendance.
The churchyard was filled with older model cars, some pickup trucks with spoke wheels and wagons filled with straight chairs where the women and children sat on the way to church while the men in the family sat on the wagon seat.
Every now and then, while the sermon was being preached, the mules outside would rattle their harness. Some farmers brought along a bale of hay which they put out for the mules to eat while the rest of us sang hymns, prayed, listened to the sermon, and anticipated the baptizing.
When Bro. Rufus Pitts, the preacher, had taken us along with John down on the Isle of Patmos we sang a final fine old Baptist hymn like "In the Garden" or "Softly and Tenderly." It was now time to walk down the hill from the church to the bridge which spanned the river. The water here ran clear, and the congregation could stand on the bridge while Bro. Pitts and a deacon or two led those to be baptized down to the water's edge. Cypress trees grew here and beneath them large swamp ferns and beautiful vines hung in great coils form the limbs of water oaks and tulip trees.
The men and boys who were to be baptized wore white shirts and dark trousers. They removed their shoes and lined them up at the edge of the water. The girls all wore long, white, loose-fitting garments made by their mothers just for the baptizing.
Those standing on the bridge saw this place as a kind of Eden. Purple water irises often bloomed near the stream, and gray moss hung in profusion from the limbs of trees. The blue sky, with an occasional puff of white cloud, reflected in the water.
The trees were so large that they shaded the bridge, and ladies did not have to open the umbrellas they had brought along to shield them from the mid-day sun.
The baptizing was a significant event in the community. It represented a continuity for the church and those who farmed the land nearby. The young people who were joining the church would, in just a few years, take the place of their parents and grandparents in the congregation. They would assume the responsibility for the care of the church and the cemetery. They would inherit family property, family stories and family possessions that had been handed down from generation to generation since the founding of the settlement shortly after this land was ceded to settlers in the 1820s.
This was 1938, and folks in the surrounding area had been baptizing in this very spot for over a hundred years. People were baptized here even before Confederate President Jefferson Davis made an attempt to escape to Cuba at the close of the Civil War and he and his family and a military escort spent the night within a half-mile of this church.
Historians have often contemplated why Davis and his party did not spend the night in the church rather than sleeping in their wagons. It is thought that Davis knew he was being followed and he chose to put the creek, which was swollen by recent rains, between himself and those Northern soldiers who were pursuing him through the country.
The new sanctuary now has a baptistery. The congregation no longer walks from the church to the bridge to witness family members and friends joining the church.
Something might have been lost here, for there is something to be said for the beauty of a baptizing in a natural stream with the blue sky overhead and the leaves of trees singing a soft song as they are stirred by the slight breeze of a midsummer afternoon.
A few weeks ago my son and I went back to this church. I try to go there at least once a year because this is where my people are. As we stood there in the cemetery, I identified each member of his family and told him that when his two young sons are old enough to understand he must bring them to this church in south Georgia where their ancestors were married, baptized, and buried.
