Collection Details:

Collection Name and Number: Concord Baptist Church (Choctaw County, Miss.) Minute Book (Z/0981).
Creator/Collector: Concord Baptist Church (Choctaw County, Miss.).
Date(s): 1837-1862.
Size: 0.30 cubic feet.
Language(s): English.
Processed by: MDAH staff, 1951; Finding Aid by MDAH intern Danielle Dixon, 2023.
Provenance: Gift of J.P. Coleman of Ackerman, MS, on December 20, 1951.
Repository: Archives & Records Services Division, Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

 

Rights and Access:

Access restrictions: Collection is open for research.

Publication rights: Copyright assigned to the MDAH. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to Reference Services. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the MDAH as the owner of the physical items and as the owner of the copyright in items created by the donor. Although the copyright was transferred by the donor, the respective creator may still hold copyright in some items in the collection. For further information, contact Reference Services.

Copyright notice: This material may be protected by copyright law (Title 17, U.S. Code).

Preferred citation: Concord Baptist Church (Choctaw County, Miss.) Minute Book (Z/0981), Mississippi Department of Archives & History.

 

Biography:

Potts Family

After the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (1830) compelled the Choctaw American Indian tribe to cede land to the United States, settlers from the eastern seaboard flooded into central Mississippi to make use of the land’s rich resources. One such group consisted of names such as Woodward, Kennedy, Brown, and Head, all branches of the Potts family, who had migrated as a single unit from the depleted rice plantations of the Fairfield District in South Carolina to instead try their hand at cotton farming.  The Potts family quickly claimed the area roughly 15 miles northwest of Louisville, Mississippi, and named the community New Prospect.  It was located in Winston County at the time, but would later fall into Choctaw County after county borders were redrawn in 1874.

Thomas Potts (1691-1764), the family’s patriarch, sailed for America from Northumberland, England, between 1720 and 1730. Originally settling in the Georgetown District of South Carolina, he and his descendants removed themselves and their slaves at least once to Fairfield before their journey to Mississippi, where they would then remain until the Civil War. Almost every member of the family is documented to have owned anywhere between two and two dozen enslaved persons, placing them in the wealthy elite of antebellum society. However, due to most of the family’s wealth depending upon plantation slavery, most of their holdings were lost in the fighting's aftermath, prompting each allied family to eventually leave New Prospect. They scattered across central Louisiana and southeastern Texas, where family members still remain. A newly rebuilt railroad eventually diverted business east to Noxubee and Lowndes counties, and by the turn of the century, New Prospect had become extinct.

Prominent descendants of Thomas Potts include Samuel Thomas Potts (1789-1859) and his second wife Ann Miller (1808-1880), both founding members of Concord Baptist Church, with Potts acting on a committee that drafted the church's rules. Potts’s first wife, Margaret Swinton (1796-1822), with whom he had three children, died a year prior to Potts's marriage to Miller. His second marriage produced ten children. A daughter from Potts's marriage to Swinton, Martha Potts (1820-1880), married John Kennedy, Jr. (1817-1880) on May 23, 1839 in Concord Baptist Church. Kennedy, Jr. served as both a founder and the church's clerk until at least 1862, while taking periodic leaves to visit his relatives back in South Carolina. Kennedy, Jr. also volunteered to fight for the Confederate Army, and was granted the rank of Captain and placed in the reserves. A daughter from Samuel Thomas Potts’s marriage to Ann Miller, Hannah Potts (1825-1911), married William Hughes Head, who would later become the church's second pastor.

Concord Baptist Church of Christ

One of the first actions taken upon the Potts' arrival was establishing a church. A business meeting of organizers took place on July 1, 1837, with the original roll consisting of five members: Samuel Thomas Potts, Ann Miller, John Kennedy, Jr., William Ragsdale Coleman (1800-1881), and Ann M. L. Murphy (also known as Nancy Head, b.1806). A letter seeking incorporation was sent to the Mississippi legislature that same year. Branches of the Potts family comprised nearly the entire congregation, with the notable exception being their enslaved persons, who were allowed to attend separate services in separate sections from attending whites.

The first business meeting was held in August 1837, recorded by John Kennedy, Jr. The church's first order of business appointed John Micou, Jr., of nearby Louisville, as interim pastor until a more permanent one could be selected. Several church members refused the pastorship over the next decade until William Hughes Head finally accepted the offer to become acting pastor in 1852, elected permanently the following November. The pastor was expected to preach every second and fourth Sunday, as well as the second Saturday, after which business meetings and the separate service for the enslaved occurred in the evening. Samuel Thomas Potts and Kennedy, Jr. also formed a committee during the initial meeting to draft church rules and a code of decorum. In December 1842, the church approved apportioning expenses for a building, which was eventually completed in 1845, and various members would perform maintenance duties such as erecting support pillars, fixing the stovepipe, and repairing windows throughout its lifespan. About 1873 the church was moved about three miles northeast from its initial location.  This and the previous location were in Winston County until the county boundary changes of 1874, after which the church wass located in Choctaw County.  Remains of the original building's foundation are located beside the Old Concord Cemetery near Weir, Mississippi.  

From its inception, Concord sent representatives to various Baptist unions ranging from the county level to the national, contributing several prominent members to state-level committees, and hosted the Mississippi Baptist State Convention in 1848. The Louisville Baptist Association admitted Concord as its second church in 1855.

As the Potts family and other settlers abandoned New Prospect after the Civil War, the church's congregation dwindled until it was recorded as being disbanded in 1889, the only known use of the building after the turn of the century occurring in 1903 as a voting precinct. Eventually, the old congregation would reorganize and incorporate new settlers to form New Prospect Baptist Church.

Louisville Baptist Association

Formed in 1838 and originally called the "Louisville Friendship," the Louisville Baptist Association was an assembly of ten churches located in and around Winston County, Mississippi, parts of which would be redrawn into Choctaw County in 1874. Meetings were held annually, with the organization acting primarily as an advisory board looking to hold member churches accountable to its constitution, settle debates amongst churches, and raise funds for missions. Each church was represented by three delegates, and a moderator was elected during each meeting to help facilitate orderly discussion and make decisions regarding queries. Queries were addressed according to Articles of Faith citing beliefs derived from the Christian Bible, as well as a list of Rules of Decorum. In 1845, a motion to dissolve the association was struck down, but by 1860 the association had grown so large that sixteen churches were dismissed to form the Kosciusko Association. It once again grew enough by 1893 to dismiss another sixteen, which would go on to form the Chester Association.

Meetings began with sermons held on topics such as baptism or missionary work before proceeding to business. Religious works involved raising funds for the Missions Board and Orphans’ Home, giving financially to aging ministers and their widows, assuring the supply of relevant denominational texts, advocating for the reading of religious but especially Baptist publications, establishing Sunday Schools within member churches, and organizing missions. They urged education for all ministers at Mississippi College, raising funds for this purpose, and advocated for a statewide prohibition on alcohol. 

In 1845, the Louisville Association supported the Mississippi Baptist State Convention in its decision to sever ties with the Triennial Convention due to the ongoing debate surrounding the ethics of slavery. They then voted in favor of joining the Southern Baptist Association.

John Micou, Jr.

John Micou, Jr. (c.1790-c. 1872) was born in Essex County, Virginia, to Sarah Brooke and John Micou, Sr. (1764-1848). After marrying his first cousin Jean Maria Micou on June 14, 1816, and having their six children, Micou, Jr. convinced his aging parents and several female relatives to migrate to Winston County, Mississippi, in search of better financial opportunities. They settled around Louisville in 1835, where Micou would become the pastor of Louisville Baptist Church. However, he was soon sent by the congregation to nearby New Prospect to help organize Concord Baptist Church, where he would remain until 1852 when he stepped down from the role due to declining health. He owned at least a dozen enslaved persons by 1850, which worked a small plot of land planting cotton.

As pastor of Concord Baptist, he regularly attended meetings of the Mississippi State Baptist Convention and several other associated organizations, influencing discussion and deliberation. He acted as an officer in several major events, representing Mississippi in the Triennial Convention in 1845, and then the Southern Baptist Convention in 1849. 

In 1847, he presented a motion to the congregation of Concord to elect a new pastor, only to be overwhelmingly rejected. In January of 1852, he formally stepped down, recommending William Hughes Head to be appointed acting pastor. He died by at least 1872, when the Louisville Association asked members to gather monetary donations for Jane Maria Micou, his widow.

William Hughes Head

William Hughes Head, commonly known as W.H. Head, was born in 1821 in Chester County, South Carolina, to Martha Hughes (1800-1868) and Burr Harrison Head (1798-1845). In 1835, his grandparents William Woodward Head, Sr. (1821-1886) and Susannah Gibson Harrison (1771-1844) relocated with other extended family members to Winston County, Mississippi, and as a young man Head and his parents would accompany them to the newly-established settlement. 

Head's first marriage occurred on November 25, 1846, to Nancy Ann Kirk, only to divorce her and marry Hannah Rebecca Potts two years later in 1848. Head's second marriage would go on to produce six children, and all male grandchildren would go on to serve in World War I and World War II. 

In 1843, Head graduated from Indiana University with the intent to practice law, but after attending a Methodist service during his resettlement in Louisville, he converted to Christianity and began spending much of his time on theological scholarship. He joined the Louisville Baptist Church during this time. After a long period of internal debate, Head eventually chose to become a preacher over practicing law, and received ordainment in 1846. Many of his extant writings include opinions and critical analysis on issues pressing upon the Baptists on the eve of the Civil War, and he contributed several articles of similar subject matter to the newspaper sponsored by the Mississippi Baptist State Convention, The Mississippi Baptist. 

Head served on numerous boards, including the Executive Board of the State Convention in 1855 and 1856, the Board of State Missions in 1874, and Louisville Baptist Association as a clerk. He also served the Louisville Baptist Association as a chairman reporting on the condition of freed African Americans within member churches; Head was thanked multiple times by the Concord Baptist congregation for his separate sermons for the enslaved, and had in April 1856 been told that further services for them are not necessary, only to continue them anyway.

Head left Winston County soon after the Civil War, moving around the South and taking up different leading religious roles such as acting as a principal of a male and female academy in Hazlehurst or as a regular writer of denominational journalism.  He at various points took up residence in Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas before returning to Kosciusko, Mississippi, where he would die in 1886 after a bout of violent illness.  He was buried in the Louisville Cemetery, near his father.

 

Scope and Content Note:

This collection contains a bound typescript, by Nellie M. Commander, of the complete minutes of Concord Baptist Church of the now-extinct New Prospect, Choctaw County (formerly Winston County), Mississippi. This volume contains 174 pages, beginning with a short background by Mississippi Attorney General J. P. Coleman, followed by: a statement of the Church Decorum, an establishment of Church Rules, a declaration of the church’s acceptance into the Presbytery, the hierarchy of members written by church clerk John Kennedy, Jr., a full roll of members, and the church minutes. The roll of membership lists both white attendees and slaves. The minutes are a summary of the church’s business meetings, which addressed administrative, financial, and social concerns; these meetings also served as means of reading letters of admission, hearing confessions to prepare for Baptism, granting formal letters of dismissal to relocating members, and excommunicating those who committed “unchristian” offenses. These infractions can be waived upon hearing confessions in exchange for forgiveness.

Notes to Researcher:
John Micou, Jr. voted in favor of a motion proposed by other Southern Baptists to dissolve ties with the Triennial Convention, due to the ruling that southern slaveholders are morally unequal to northern non-slaveholding Baptists.

In April 1851, church members drew up a Church Covenant stating beliefs according to the Church of Christ faith, a more conservative offshoot of the Baptist denomination.

Offenses warranting excommunication include: adultery, intoxication, dancing, playing card games, lying, theft, chronic absenteeism, swearing, "unscriptural" marriage or, for the enslaved, running away.

Page 163: The word "slave" is not used until February of 1860, with the minutes instead referring to enslaved persons as "servants."

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: Meeting Minutes (Typescript copy), 1837-1862.
One volume of meeting minutes (typescript copy) of Concord Baptist Church, Choctaw County, dated August 1837 through June 1862. The typed volume contains 14 pages of church decorum and rules and a list of the original members of the church. There are 174 pages of typed minutes.

 

Box List:

Box 1
Minutes (typescript copy). August 1837–June 1862. 1 volume.