This is the fourth in a series on historic churches in Hancock County. This month we return to the Bay St. Louis area with a look at the Valena C. Jones United Methodist Church located located at 248 Sycamore Street.
Between 1865 and 1882, the predominately white Methodist Episcopal parent church faced the problem of what should be done with freed slaves in the South, who were increasing in number and who wanted and needed equal representation in, among other things, places of worship. In 1880, in a small building on Washington Street in Bay St. Louis, a small group of energetic black women, fifteen years after receiving freedom from slavery, founded what was then called the St. Paul Methodist Episcopal Church. Among the founders were Ellen Kelly, Blanche McArthur and Edith Ross. These three women and others proceeded to seek out leaders and to use the existing skills and abilities of other black people in the area to develop a religious and educational training program.
The efforts of these founders were successful as attendance at worship services and Sunday School increased regularly and it was soon apparent that the small building on Washington Street was not large enough. In 1882 a new building was constructed on Sycamore Street or, as it was then called, Good Children Street. The leadership of, among others, Thomas Meggs, William Kelly, John Marshall, Albert Whaley, and Reverand O. H. Flowers made this new building possible. At the time of the construction of the new church. St. Paul had an active membership of more than 75 adult members.
In spite of certain continuing discriminatory practices regarding black members by the Mississippi Methodist Conference, St. Paul continued to increase its membership helped by the leadership of pastors O. H. Flowers, W. A. Cannon, J. E. Holmes, and A. H. Lathan. From 1908 to 1910 records reflect that Prince Albert Taylor, Sr. served St. Paul’s as pastor and it was during his time that a large hurricane did significant damage to the church’s parsonage.
In 1922 the church purchased additional property on Sycamore Street from Joe Rosetta and the Reed family. It was on this site in 1926 that a new church was built. The building committee membership included, in addition to its chairman, Bishop Robert E. Jones of the Central Jurisdiction of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Frank Fox, Wesley Holmes, Edward Lee, Robert Squires, Moses Lathan, Wiley Daniels, A. Bennett and D. Robinson. The Reverand Amos L. Holland was pastor at this time. Joseph Labat was both the architect and contractor for the new building.
The new church was dedicated to and named for Valena C. Jones. Mrs. Jones, a daughter of one of the founders of St. Paul’s, was born on August 3, 1872 in Bay St. Louis. She began teaching schools in rural Mississippi about 1890 and became the principal of the Bay St. Louis Negro School in 1892 followed by a period of public school teaching in New Orleans. Mrs. Jones died in New Orleans at the age of 44 in 1917. Several public schools were named in her honor including one in Bay St. Louis.
Mrs. Jones was the wife of Bishop Robert E. Jones of New Orleans who became the first black bishop to be elected as General Superintendant of what was the Methodist Episcopal Church. Bishop Jones fufilled a dream to establish a religious resort for black people in the South by organizing ministers and lay people to fund raise in order to purchase more than 300 acres, much of it facing the Gulf of Mexico, in Waveland. In 1924 a building was constructed and Bishop Jones named th site the Gulfside Chatauqua and Camp Meeting Ground. Later, this historic campus was called the Gulfside Methodist Assembly. Gulfside Assembly was dedicated on August 31, 1927, on the premises of the old Andrew Jackson, Jr. house.
The newly named Valena C. Jones church on Sycamore Street continued to garner recognition as a vibrant congregation. Records reflect that the church hosted the Annual Mississippi Conference in 1936 and provided music for these annual conferences at Gulfside Assembly in the years 1932, 1934 and 1936. Additionally the church was selected as the laboratory for Church School Leadership Training Programs for several summers.
Enhancements to the church continued down through the years including the addition of oak pews in 1953 under the pastorate of the Reverand J. P. Johnson. In 1982 a building program was launched to expand the facility under the leadership of the Reverend Arthur “Soul Preacher” Lewis, who served not only as pastor but as “builder, fund raiser, counselor, teacher and carpenter.” Completed in 1985, the new addition was named the “Grace F. Polloade Fellowship Hall” in honor of Grace Polloade, longtime member and teacher at the church. In 1991 the parsonage was renovated and dedicated to the memory of Mrs. Brunetta Young Daniels, another faithful, lifetime member of the church.
During 1991 a volunteer mission group from the Wisconsin United Methodist Conference partially renovated the sanctuary followed by a cash donation to help complete the renovation. Also in this same year, a church youth group from Houston helped renovate the old parsonage into a livable structure. On September 19, 1993 the church celebrated a “homecoming” made possible by several fundraisers.