"When you start about family, about lineage and ancestry, you are talking about every person on earth." -Alex Haley

Second Baptist Church, Colored - Linneus, Missouri

I’ve discovered a very interesting piece of information to help in the Hutchinson/Walden/Russell area of the tree. It’s the name of a church in Linn County, Missouri and a list of its founding members (some of the names match our tree). I am over the moon. Like many other genealogists, I have had more difficulty finding our African-American ancestors in the 1800s and before. In fact, beginning with my grandmother and going back 150 years, each of the mothers/grandmothers in her line was a housekeeper of a “private family”, and only one of the women has a documented father for her children. Each of the others raised and cared for her children, seemingly alone, and worked her entire life while remaining very loyal to the families they worked for. It's been an interesting journey, and I'm often reminded of the strength and independence of my grandmother, as I can see now that those qualities are present in a long line of women. I am proud to be part of that line.

The research does get complicated, and records are few, which is why I find this seemingly minor bit of info absolutely fantastic. I know it will help me, and I hope it can help some of you.

At a site called Genealogy Trails History Group, I found the info. It’s a transcribed excerpt from a book/document enitled “An Encyclopedia of Useful Information, and a Compendium of Actual Facts” by Birdsall & Dean, 1882. I will be researching this document to find more info, but here is the exciting part for this particular branch of the tree:

Linneus Churches (Town of Linneus, County of Linn, Missouri, USA)

Second Baptist Church, Colored — This church was organized in 1865, with the following members:

Jesse Johns, Henry Walden, Martha Walden, Harriet Russell, Mary Cheatham, J. Baker, Mary Johns, and Mary Hanson.  A frame church building in which services are held was erected in 1868, at a cost of about $600.  In this building the colored school is taught.  The pastors of this church have been B. Hillman and Hardin Morton.

View the complete document HERE.

I currently have Henry & Martha (Slack) Walden in my tree, and other people with the last names Johns and Russell are in my tree, from the same branch of the family, same generation, same town. I am quite anxious to do more research. My next step is to find out whether this church is still around, and whether any records are available. Maybe our later relatives were members and baptized or married in that church.

-Maria

A people that take no pride in the noble achievements of remote ancestors, will never achieve anything worthy to be remembered with pride by remote generations. 

—J. Macaulay