This Day in Baptist History

April 12, 1849 – James Whitsett died in perfect peace at 79 years of age. He had been saved under the powerful preaching of Joseph Anderson in his latter years who had come to Christ as a result of the evangelistic zeal of Separatist Baptist preachers Samuel Harris and James Read, who in turn were converts of Shubal Stearns, Pastor of the Sandy Creek Baptist Church of Sandy Creek, N.C. Whitsett, a 17 year old young man had been reared in the Episcopal Church and knew nothing of the saving grace of Christ. Upon his profession of faith he was baptized by Elder Anthony. It wasn’t long until he followed his family to the Cumberland area of middle Tennessee and met his wife Miss Jane Maneese who bore him eleven children. It was there that he united with the Mill Creek Baptist Church and was ordained into the gospel ministry. “From then until the end of his life was the history of the Baptist denomination in the Cumberland.” He was active in the formation of several associations of churches. The Concorn Assoc., composed of 21 churches east of Nashville in 1812 reported 866 baptisms, 350 of which were performed by Elder Whitsett. For forty years Whitsett had the care of four churches himself, until his health would no longer permit him to carry the load. He was a man of striking personal appearance and manners. His entire demeanor was one of dignity, which repelled every light reproach, and a self-possession that never forsook him. On the 2nd Lord’s Day in Oct. 1848, he was with his church in Nashville, at communion. He said, ‘And now brethren and sisters, farewell. We shall meet no more upon this earth.’

Condensed by Greg J. Dixon from: This Day in Baptist History II: Cummins and Thompson, BJU Press: pp. 200-02. [C.F: J.J. Burnette, D.D. Sketches of Tennessee’s’ Pioneer Baptist Preachers (Nasvhille : Press of Marshall and Bruce Company, 1919), pp. 528-29.]