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At 112, church deserves to be called Bay?s ?first*
BY D.C. HARVILL
First Baptist churches abound.
First Missionary Baptist Church, however, has a legitimate claim to the numerical designation. It was the first
Baptist church------in Bay St.
Louis.
Founded in 1877, First Missionary will celebrate its 112th anniversary with a special service at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, April 23.
The anniversary theme is ?Christ the Head, and the Church His Body?. Guest speaker will be the Reverend Alonzo Dees of East Jerusalem Baptist Church in Picayune.
According to a history compiled for First Missionary?s 100th anniversary, the church was bom when, due to the lack of a Baptist church, Alexander Fox gathered together four others and started the church in his home.
Realizing their fledgling church needed a pastor if it was to prosper, the founders called in the Reverend Taylor Fryer-son to be their first pastor.
Under the leadership of the Reverend Fryerson, the small membership was able to construct their first church on Kel-lar Street between Hancock and Third Streets.
After the Reverend Fryerson
left for another pulpit, the Reverend Charles Mosley became the church?s second pastor. ?With great determination, faith, hard work and trust in God,? the church, under the Reverend Mosley?s guidance, was able to purchase the site at the comer of Sycamore and Third Streets where it presently is housed.
First Missionary has been served by numerous ministers since its early days and, inspite of some setbacks, has continued to prosper and grow.
Only once in its long history, after the church building was destroyed by the 1947 Hurricane, was First Missionary threatened by the prospect of disbanding.
Following that disaster, the Reverend S.T. Peters assumed the pastorship. He was able to keep the congregation together and build a new church house, the present structure, which was completed in April 1950.
From 1964 to 1968, under the Reverend Jessie L. Trotter, an expansion program was undertaken and the church added an educational department, dining facilities, a fellowship hall and a pastor?s study.
Currently, the church is served by the Reverend William J. Harper.
FIRST MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH
2A-THE SEA COAST ECHO?SUNDAY, APRIL 16, 1989'