Virginia Baptist Historical Society

In 1915 Frederic W. Boatwright was the busy president of the University of Richmond (although at the time the school was still known as Richmond College). He had just lived through the first academic year of the school’s relocation from…

On the last Sunday of May, Bill Tuck was extended warm farewells as he concluded a 20-month interim pastorate at the First Baptist Church of Raleigh, N.C. The congregation formed a long line to give handshakes and hugs to Bill…

If Baptists had bishops (and they don’t), the bishop of the Blackwater Baptist Association was Ira D. “Tuck” Hudgins.  He filled the role of elder statesman, counselor and pulpit supply until his death on April 28 at age 91. Fred…

Phil and Bernice Rodgerson are living in one of “the villas,” the posh new quarters at Lakewood Manor, the Baptist retirement community in Richmond. Her baby grand piano anchors one corner of their spacious living room and his study is…

RICHMOND — Past and current diversity among Baptists will be examined at the Virginia Baptist Historical Society’s annual meeting, set for Tuesday, May 19, at First Baptist Church in Richmond. “The Swirling Center: The Prospect of Diversity in the Church”…

Ruth and Maynard Guill were twentysomethings when the folks at their church, Weatherford Memorial of Richmond, began helping a young married couple studying at Virginia Union University. A.O. Adeyemi (pronounced Ah-de-ah-me) was 38 when he left his native Nigeria for…

‘Keep me a hundred years, and you shall find a use for me.” In 1885 William H. Whitsitt penned this line on the inside front cover of his secret diary. The diarist painstakingly and neatly recorded his activities and his…

European Baptists are throwing a huge party in July in Amsterdam to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the church founded by John Smyth and Thomas Helwys in 1609. If Amsterdam is not on your summer itinerary, there are places closer…