This Day in Baptist History
March 19, 1809 – The Buck Mountain Church; sent this greeting to Thomas Jefferson when his presidency was over. “Dear Sir, We congratulate you in your return home from your labours and painful service of eight years, now to take some hours of retirement and rest, enjoying at pleasure the company of your loving friends and neighbors…May your days be many and comfortable. In a word (may we say) we wish you health, wealth and prosperity through life, and in the world to come life everlasting.” Jefferson was the statesman of the Revolution, George Washington was the general, and Benjamin Franklin was the sage. But there is much evidence that Jefferson was greatly influenced in his ideas of a democratic form of government, by a little Baptist church, near his home in Virginia. Several sources claim that Jefferson often attended the services and saw them conduct their business in the presence of the entire congregation. Jefferson was heard to remark that in his opinion it was the only form of true democracy any place in the world. To what degree this influenced Jefferson we cannot say but undoubtedly it was not inconsiderable. In fact Dolly Madison attested later that Mr. Jefferson remarked to her that a Baptist church influenced his views on this subject. The church was the Albemarle Baptist Church, which became known as the Lewis Meeting House which was located about 11/2 miles west of the city of Charlottesville, Virginia. It was later called Buck Mountain, and finally took the name of Chestnut Grove Baptist and is the oldest church in the Albermarle Baptist Association. Republicanism is a Baptist principal.
Condensed by Greg J. Dixon from: This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: pp. 152-54. [C.F: Edgar Woods, History of Albermarle County (Charlottesville, Va.: Michie Printing Co., 1901), p. 132.
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