Jeremiah Bell Jeter was in a dilemma. After several years of a highly successful pastorate at the prestigious First Baptist Church of Richmond, “the music demon” visited the church. In today's language, it was “the worship wars.” And it all was over the purchase of an organ. Some prominent members wanted one. As pastor, Jeter opposed it on scriptural grounds. He tendered his resignation and the congregation accepted it. His biographer reasoned, “He mistook a prejudice for a principle.”
Jeter immediately accepted the pastorate of Second Baptist Church in St. Louis, Mo. And life played a grand joke on him. He arrived to discover that the church had already installed “a loud-sounding organ.” Jeter had to bite his lip.
At age 47, Jeter's move in 1849 from Virginia to Missouri was starting over in several ways. It was his first position outside of the comfort zone of his native Virginia. He left behind his circle of friends. As a preacher-boy of barely 20, he had served as one of the first state missionaries of the new General Association; and for two years, he had traveled by horseback across Virginia, preaching and forming life-long relationships. He quickly had won the admiration and respect of the older generation. He had tried his talents in several pastorates and everything had been going splendidly until that “music demon” visited.
He brought a new bride with him to St. Louis. Twice widowed, he had found a new love in Charlotte Wharton, “the most queenly and attractive young woman” of Bedford.
Five years earlier, in 1844, Jeter and his best friend, Daniel Witt (the other half of the Bedford Plowboys missionary team in their salad days) caught the “Western Fever” and visited Missouri. At the time, Witt's was considering a move to the area while Jeter's intention was just curiosity and a visit to relatives.
Both men were impressed with St. Louis “as a place of evangelical labor.” Jeter later reflected, “I then thought that no place on the continent offered, or could offer, greater prospects for permanent success in ministerial labor.” As it happened, Jeter was the one who decided to relocate to Missouri and Witt was content to remain in rural Prince Edward County, Va.
Upon arriving as pastor, Jeter soon discovered that St. Louis was far different from Richmond. The congregation “was composed of heterogeneous materials,” consisting of recent immigrants from other lands and states. “They had their peculiar views of preaching, music, the manner of conducting public worship, church discipline. It was almost impossible to say, do, or propose anything which would secure universal [approval].” It was obvious that there was a different temperament between “the staid and easy-going Virginians” and an “unyielding spirit of the new West.”
He had been in the St. Louis pastorate only a few months when a movement began for new church planting. In a letter back home to Daniel Witt, Jeter explained the plan: “We propose to settle one minister in the Northern, and another in the Southern or Western part of the city. They will have wide fields. Their business will be [to] get acquainted with the Baptists, and their friends, and, as far as practicable, the people generally in their respective fields, awaken an interest in the enterprise, procure places for preaching, gather congregations, hold protracted meetings, organize churches, and obtain the means of building permanent houses of worship. A great, arduous, but interesting work it is.”
Jeter sent invitations to two of the top preachers in Virginia — Witt and Abram Poindexter — to join him in the church planting. He tried to entice them with the possibilities: “St. L. is a rapidly growing place — Baptists enough immigrate here every year to form a respectable church — money vested in city property doubles in value every few years — the general health of the place is good — the cost of living here is about as great as in Richmond — as a matter of taste I would prefer the East to the West, but I know of no more important field of labor than this.” Despite all his powers of persuasion, Jeter could not convince his Virginia friends to relocate.
Three new churches were planted during Jeter's pastorate but they were planted at a great price for the preacher. Most of the constituent members came from the mother church and relocated as colonies. The churches started by Second were First German Church, Third Church and Fourth Church. (Obviously the St. Louis Baptists were not very imaginative in their choice of church names.) The mother church and the state association shared the expenses of the ministers who served as the actual church planters.
In his efforts to begin the new churches, Jeter soon experienced an unexpected result. He later wrote: “The members who went out to organize the new churches were those most in harmony with my views and most readily influenced by my counsels. My position in Second was weakened. The restless, discordant members remained, and rendered my situation for a time unpleasant.”
“Some of them were dissatisfied with my ministry. They were not nourished by it. They had been used to a different kind of food. I did not blame them for their taste. I was deeply conscious of the imperfection of my ministry.”
One of Jeter's fiercest opponents in the church was the man who earlier had been his strongest ally in accepting the St. Louis pastorate. Jeter's biographer pictured the situation: “Alas! That brother's friendship was as the morning cloud. Soon after he reached St. Louis, the Doctor found that his ardor was beginning to cool, and in a short while he became openly hostile. He was soon as anxious to drive the pastor out, as he had been eager to bring him in. It was a bitter ordeal.”
After three years in exile, Jeter returned to Richmond in 1852 as the pastor of Grace Street Baptist Church. Still ahead for him was the editorship of the Religious Herald and many useful denominational endeavors. He took some comfort in the knowledge that the new church plants were successful, but he was glad the adventures were behind him.
Fred Anderson may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.