In its 225 years High Hills Baptist Church at Jarratt, Va., has witnessed many sunrises. Each one brought challenges and opportunities. At the front of the church’s sanctuary there are two tablets memoralizing early pastors: Josiah C. Bailey (1813-1881) and James D. Brown (1846-1890). On Brown’s tablet are carved the words, “His sun went down while it was yet day.”
Although Brown died too young, at age 44, he had packed a heap of living into those years. He was born and lived out most of his life in the same neck of the woods as High Hills. He attended Washington College in those lean years after “the War” and personally came into contact with the man whose name the college later placed alongside Washington: General Robert E. Lee. The great man once gave Brown his photograph and autographed it. The gift became an icon and Brown kept it among his treasures.
Fred Anderson
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Another far more momentous event happened while at Washington & Lee. Brown found Christ, was converted and was baptized into the fellowship of High Hills. The sunrise of his baptism marked the day when he set his course in a direction that never ended.
He entered the law school at the University of Virginia, but he kept feeling that there was something else besides law and farming in his future. For 10 years worth of sunrises he wrestled within himself. He married Lucy Jarratt, a member of a prominent local family of staunch Baptists.
In 1873 Brown was among a delegation of High Hills Baptists who made the train trip to Richmond for the greatest Baptist gathering ever held in Virginia. It was the 50th anniversary meeting of the Baptist General Association of Virginia and was held on the campus of the Baptist school, Richmond College. For months there had been a fundraising campaign among Virginia Baptists to re-endow their college, which had lost everything in the late war.
On a June sunrise, Brown, then age 26, joined George Bailey and H.T. Jarratt for the train ride to Richmond. Their pockets were full of money to donate to the Baptist cause. In a time of general impoverishment, some 54 High Hills members had contributed nearly $500 for the endowment campaign. The gifts ranged from $75 from George Bailey to $1 “from a Presbyterian lady” and 50 cents from another woman. Every penny helped.
The meeting in Richmond brought the young Brown into contact with some of the leading Baptists of the day. He watched as Jeremiah Bell Jeter, editor of the Religious Herald, thrilled the vast assembly by announcing his own gift of $1,000. Some of the High Hills folks had told Brown that Jeter had been ordained at their church 50 years earlier. They still proudly claimed him as one of their own. Brown heard the great orator, J.L.M. Curry, who kept the attention of the crowd—which some said totalled 10,000 persons, almost all of them standing—with his 90-minute address on the contributions of Virginia Baptists to securing religious liberty.
High Hills folks remembered that their grandparents had talked about that struggle, when Baptists were whipped, beaten and jailed in Virginia, and about the eventual securing of religious liberty. Their own church had been constituted in 1787 and was a part of the triumph of the Baptists for soul freedom.
The events of that June meeting played upon the emotions of young James Brown and he began to more earnestly consider a career in the ministry. He became active in the YMCA of Petersburg, Va., the closest large community to his home. He also worked as a Bible distributor in the countryside south of Petersburg. In 1882 he was ordained by High Hills and, for the rest of his days, served that church and nearby Antioch and Shiloh, which comprised a field of churches.
And the years and decades pile up high. When this columnist arrived at High Hills last April for one of their anniversary Sabbaths, the first person who greeted him inside the church was Chipper Brown, a great-grandson of the early pastor. He and his family are very active in the life of the church.
Before entering the building, I wandered among the stones in the old graveyard and was surprised to hear someone calling my name. It was Kathy Shereda, the pastor.
She respects the history and heritage of High Hills and walks in the footsteps of many predecessors, including Robert Wyatt who devoted 29 years to the church.
In the morning service I met Kamryn Poole, a fourth grader who is a direct descendant of John McGlamre, the founding pastor of the church. During the children’s message, Pastor Shereda shared with the youngsters that their church has a long and worthy heritage. She said: “Baptists appreciate freedom. We live in a country where nobody can tell us we can’t go to church and worship God. We should be excited that we can worship in our own house of worship as free people and free Baptists.”
During the church dinner, I met Kamryn’s great-aunt, the pleasant and indomitable Virginia Finney. McGlamre was her fifth great-grandfather and she has continued her family’s long devotion to High Hills. At age 88, she is full of memories, including a mental image of the old “plain, simple” church building which dated to “after the War.” She laughs that she once slept on the church pews, recalling what she has been told about her infancy.
Her father, Walter, was instrumental in erecting the present church house. She also carries a mental story of her father going to the depot to retrieve the church bell, which was hauled on a wagon led by a team of mules. In later years, the bell fell and she remembered holding the tools while her father put it back in place. The Finneys walked to church and few Sabbath sunrises ever dawned in which that they were not in their rightful place.
Churches like High Hills—old, solid, stable churches—have witnessed many risings and settings of the sun and have learned as a people over the long years what is lasting and what is significant. They also want to continue to labor for the Master while it is yet day.
Fred Anderson ([email protected]) is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies.