In October this columnist visited Sanford Memorial Baptist Church at Brodnax, a small town east of South Hill, Va. The occasion was the church’s centennial. It was a grand and glorious celebration. Some church folks had even roasted a pig for the occasion and the barbeque was more popular than the fried chicken at the traditional dinner-on-the-grounds.
The church was full for the special day. For some, Sanford Memorial was the only church they had ever known. For others, it was a church they had joined late in life. Some attended that Sunday simply because of family ties.
Fred Anderson
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In conversation it became evident that many knew little or nothing about the church’s namesake. Who was Sanford and why does the church bear his name?
We hardly can blame today’s generation for not knowing about a man who was active 100 years ago. Millard Fillmore Sanford was not some beloved early pastor or some influential layperson of the Brodnax church. He was not even from Southside Virginia. He had little lasting relationship to the church, but he had ignited the spark which resulted in the constituting of a church in the village so long ago.
In 1912 Sanford was an evangelist under appointment of what is known today as the Virginia Baptist Mission Board. His field was all of Virginia. One week he preached in Chilhowie in Southwest Virginia and the next in Brodnax in the southeastern area. And in the vast countryside in between those extremes he was well known and deeply loved. Of his half-century of preaching, he spent over 18 of those years as the state evangelist and became a household name during that period. During all those years of crossing the state, Sanford stayed mainly in the homes of the Baptist church folks and built relationships.
He held an evangelistic meeting at Brodnax and a small group of Baptists gathered in a borrowed room of the Methodist church and a church was constituted. At first, it simply was referred to by everyone as the Brodnax Baptist Church but someone felt that the evangelist was due more than a fried chicken dinner. They named the church after “Fill” Sanford.
If you had ever met Sanford, you would have remembered him. He was physically a big man and some said that it took a body so large to hold such a great heart. He was a powerful preacher and when regular preaching failed, he turned to song. In the middle of a sermon, he might break into one of his favorite hymns such as On Jordan’s Stormy Banks I Stand.
He was thoroughly a Virginia Baptist. Born in 1852 at Montross in Westmoreland County, he grew up and was born again in Nomini Baptist Church in the Northern Neck. Before he even entered the ministry, as a young man, he was a good Baptist layman, serving his home church as a deacon, clerk, treasurer and committee member. At age 20, he was enjoying attending the district association meetings and learning about the Baptist machinery. He was given the traditional education of old Richmond College, the Baptist school; and after college, he began a lifetime of ministerial service.
At age 23, he married Eleanor Nevitt; and three years later, he was serving on a field of churches in Essex County. In 1882, he helped constitute a new church plant called Currioman which came out of Nomini. Sanford took an inheritance from his mother and paid his own money to build a church house. He remained at the small new church for six years; and in 1888 he left the Northern Neck for other pastoral fields which over time included churches on the Eastern Shore; in Southside, including Burkeville, Crewe and Blackstone; in Stuart in the mountains of Patrick County; and in Central Virginia around Culpeper. There were more churches than space permits to name.
Along the way, “Fill” and Eleanor were blessed with enough children to create their own church! They had 10, including a preacher-son, T. Ryland Sanford, a football star at Richmond College who some identify as the original Spider, the man behind the mascot. “T. Ryland” also made a name for himself by throwing his influence behind the Chatham Training School which became known as Hargrave Military Academy. For awhile, Eleanor even taught in her son’s academy.
When Sanford became the state evangelist in 1912, he broadened his base to include all of Virginia. At meetings of the General Association his large frame and jovial laugh was instantly recognized. He became one of those powerful personalities which almost embodied what it meant to be a Virginia Baptist.
Like the author of the faith, he attracted children. The late Edith Healy, an historian of Nomini Church and a relative of Sanford, once reminisced about the times when Sanford would come calling when she was a child. “His visits were special events in our home. We waited impatiently for the grown-ups to get out of the way and to hear him say, ‘Come here children and I’ll tell you a tale.’ And what tales they were. Seventy years later, I could tell them. We thought of him as a saint but such a saint as could have fun and enjoy life. An [elderly] relative who lived with us became an invalid and used to say, ‘I wish Brother Fill would come to see us. I feel nearer the Lord when he is here.’ ”
The words of that old person from long ago may have summed up the reason why the constituent members of the church at Brodnax felt led to name their new church after the state evangelist. Like that old person, they must have felt “nearer the Lord” because of the presence of Millard Fillmore Sanford.
Many of those gathered for that centennial service at Brodnax learned for the first time about “Fill” Sanford, the namesake of their church; and perhaps when someone asks them about the significance of their church’s name, they can respond, “Now, let me tell you ….”
Fred Anderson ([email protected]) is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage & Studies.