Faithful readers of this column know that my alter ego is William E. Hatcher, a noted 19th-century Baptist minister. They have followed my Hatcher portrayals and know his connections with everything Baptist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. All of his pastorates were in his native Virginia save one. In 1867 he became pastor of Franklin Square Baptist Church in Baltimore.
Hatcher
It was a brief pastorate but not altogether unsuccessful. He once declared that the Baltimore days were filled with “rich joys.” In 1868 a pulpit committee from Petersburg came calling and Hatcher returned to Virginia. “A Virginian is a stark fool,” he wrote, “to everybody except to Virginians. Other people may feel as they please, but only a Virginian knows how a Virginian feels. I had fooled myself to death in believing that I was happy out of Virginia, but the spirit of about 12 generations of Virginians lay restless within me.”
William and Jennie Hatcher returned to Virginia with their little children, May and Eldridge. Interestingly, many years later, Eldridge Hatcher went to Baltimore as the secretary for the Maryland Baptist Union. William Hatcher's post-Baltimore life included pastorates at First Baptist Church, Petersburg, and for 26 years at Grace Baptist Church, Richmond, as well as the founding of Fork Union Military Academy. He died in 1912.
This columnist revived the grand old man and has presented him in some 350 character portrayals. Finally, after all those years, Hatcher was invited to return to Baltimore. His old church has been gone for 80 years. The invitation came from Woodbrook Baptist Church, which formerly was known as Eutaw Place Baptist Church, a church with a rich heritage. And so on a beautiful fall morning last month, Hatcher appeared in the sanctuary and spoke on Baptist principles. Woodbrook's building, exterior and interior, is of impressive contemporary architecture and design; but in a glance about the place, my eyes spotted a period lectern which actually came from old Eutaw Place. It was perfect for the 19th-century visitor to use.
It may be possible that Hatcher actually used it at the old church. In 1879 he led a three-week protracted meeting at Eutaw Place. When he left, he was given a check in the embarrassingly large amount of $200. “The money seemed a sacred thing,” reflected Hatcher. “I resolved that it should not be spent for casual or common things. I took it and furnished my rear parlor as a ‘preacher's room.' That room in our Richmond home became a resting place for the Lord's angels and a remembrance of Baltimore. We named it ‘Eutaw Place' and it was strictly reserved for visiting preachers or preachers' wives. No one else, be he king or pope, could be put up in ‘Eutaw Place.' ”
In a churchly genealogy, it needs to be said that First Baptist Church, Baltimore, was constituted in 1773 and among its offspring was Seventh Baptist Church, founded in 1845, which colonized Eutaw Place in 1871. In 1969 the church relocated to the suburbs and changed its name to Woodbrook. In 1970 John E. Roberts was called as pastor. A decade earlier, he had served as associate to long-time pastor W. Clyde Atkins. Today, Roberts is pastor emeritus and is “keeper of the history.” John Stewart Ballenger, a highly capable and effective minister, is pastor. He treats everyone “as family,” including strangers from the past.
When Hatcher came to his Baltimore pastorate in 1867, “the great and colossal” Richard Fuller was pastor of Seventh and, when founded, of Eutaw Place. He was an imposing denominational giant. Product of an aristocratic South Carolina family and educated at Harvard University, Fuller was an ideal man for Baltimore, bridging himself the divisions between North and South during the times before, during and after “the War.” At the time of Hatcher's arrival in Baltimore, Fuller already had served as president of the Southern Baptist Convention. He had preached the first annual sermon delivered at an SBC meeting. Already he was a published author and public orator of renown.
Hatcher came to Baltimore from his first pastorate in Manchester, the town across the bridge from Richmond and usually called “Dog Town” by the locals. A mountain lad, he had studied at “the Baptist school,” Richmond College. The great accomplishments for the young preacher lay far into the future.
The new city pastor had been forewarned that Fuller was “inaccessible to young preachers and often cold and unsympathetic towards them.” Hatcher reckoned that since he was “a young colt” of 33, he had no concern of becoming “yoked with the great Baptist lion of America” who was “an old man” of 63.
“A few weeks after my work began, the servant came to my study with a card and on it was the name of Richard Fuller. I thought … doomsday had come. I entered the parlor and I verily believe that the most unique, interesting, heart-warming handshake that up to that time had come to me was given by Dr. Fuller. His way of calling me ‘Brother Hatcher' was peculiar and I [felt] that there was warmth, sincerity and possibly some love back of it. He talked to me about the preachers in Baltimore and had a good word for every one of them.” Fuller also praised the people of Hatcher's church.
“The visit was not long and he ended it rather suddenly by saying that he would like for us to pray together. Oh, that prayer! In its beauty and ardor and tenderness it might have gone for a poem. It was uttered in a low voice, a voice that trembled with emotion more than once, and it asked the Lord to do some things for me that I hadn't thought of, and which I felt I would be the gladdest in the world if the Lord only would. When he regained his feet, he gave me his hand — another memorable grasp, and moved out of the room with not another word.”
would be other encounters with the eminent preacher. Whenever one of Fuller's congregants desired to join Hatcher's church, Hatcher would suggest that they go and talk with the revered Fuller. “They acted upon my counsel and they brought me delightful reports as to the warmth with which he encouraged them to come up and help Brother Hatcher build up Franklin Square. I understood well enough that he did this for a denomination of which he was not only a princely member but an ardent lover.” In the return to Baltimore, Hatcher remembered the prince of preachers.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.