Mount Vernon Baptist Church marked its 140th anniversary in late September, tracing its official founding to 1886 even though the congregation’s roots reach back further, to a two-room mission on Queen Street where seven or eight formerly enslaved worshippers first gathered in 1880 seeking spiritual independence.
That founding group included Dolly Best, Isabella Gilmore, Will and Polly Lassiter, and Julia Richmond. The property housing that early mission was gifted in 1884 by R.L. Blackwell.
The congregation formally organized in 1887 following a spiritual revival at the Masonic Hall on Fayetteville Street, selecting the Rev. J.K. Butler as its first pastor; Butler was, at the time, simultaneously serving as pastor of First Baptist Church, which later became the historic White Rock Baptist Church. The church’s identity and name trace to a separate transaction: a lot purchased for $300 from tobacco industrialist W.T. Blackwell at the corner of Mount Vernon Avenue and South Queen Street, which anchored the congregation both physically and in name for decades to come…