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Siloam Ministry


C
harles Crow continued to serve as pastor of Ocmulgee Church from November 18, 1820 until April 28, 1822, a period of seventeen months.  During this time, he guided the congregation into a pattern of operation and behavior that was the mirror image of the Bush River Church.  

When one reads the Bush River Journal and the Ocmulgee Church Min-utes, the similarities are strikingly obvious.  Both were stern with mem-bers and required adherence to a strict code of conduct as judged by the congregation and its leadership; both injected the church into disputes between individual members and applied the church's discipline when the parties to the dispute did not respond in a way the church thought proper; both sought and accepted Negroes, free and slave, as members of the church and were sincere in their ministry to them, but maintained white superiority in the church leadership and government; both en-couraged young ministers who rose out of the congregation and were careful to insure their suitability to become ministers of the Gospel; and both established and operated the church's government in almost exactly parallel ways.  It should be accepted that these characteristics of the Ocmulgee Church met with the approval and were supported by Charles Crow.  As such, they give insight into his mind and thinking on these matters. 

 During the 1820 - 1822 period, events progressed along the Oakmulgee.  Jesse Crow was born and Sarah Harlan died.  Stephen McCraw, Char-les' old friend and neighbor died.  Stephen grew ill in February 1821 and wrote his last will and testament.   On April 2, 1821, he died and was the first person buried in the Ocmulgee Church cemetery.  

On October 4, 1821, Charles expanded his land holdings and was granted a land patent on 157.8 acres, six miles north of his Oakmulgee Creek property.  The certificate # 123 was signed by James Monroe, President of the United States and reads in part, " . . . whereby it ap-pears that full payment has been made by the said Charles Crow ac-cording to  . . . the Act of Congress on the 24th of April 1820 entitled and act making further provisions for the sale of Public lands . . . " 

On April 28, 1822, " . . .  br. Crow petitioned to be released from further obligations as pastoral supply for the church.  The church agrees in the Affirmation."  In this way the departure of Charles Crow from the Ocmulgee Church was noted in the church minutes.  Charles resigned to accept the invitation of the Siloam Woman's Society of Marion, Alabama to come to that village to found a church there.  Dr. Holly states in the Alabama Baptist that " . . . he was becoming increasingly concerned about the moral status of the inhabitants of Marion.  Open bar rooms, bawdy houses, street fights, were common in this frontier town . . . Marion has been represented as notorious for these displays of wicked-ness. . . . " 

Dr. Holly is correct about Marion in 1822 and the decade that followed.  Marion had three hotels, three stores, but no less than eleven taverns.  " . . . drinking at that period was as common as eating."  There was " . . . no social stigma connected with heavy drinking."  "Rowdyism, public drunkenness and bloody encounters were daily occurrences."  Billy Price's dog dram shop across from the courthouse was the "lounging place for all the loafing population for many miles around."   These men were " . . . the originates of all the mischief perpetrated in Marion for the succeeding ten years."  

Having established the Ocmulgee Church and launched it successfully, Charles turned the church over to his neighbor, Noah Haggard, who was elected as pastor by the congregation.  Crow now turned his attention and efforts to what he must have considered a fertile field for God's work -- wicked Marion.  Marion was a small crossroads village when he arrived there to found the Siloam Church.  "Siloam Church was consti-tuted June 1822 by Elders Charles Crow and William Calloway . . .  At that time only a few log cabins were located in the heart of the county . . . "  From records available, it appears nine persons were present when the church was organized.  A meeting house was erected on a quarter acre of land set aside for churches in Marion, and the congregation re-ceived title to it on June 4, 1824.    

Here Charles preached one weekend a month for the next eight years.  It would be less than objective to call his ministry at Siloam Church a suc-cess.  He did not reform "wicked" Marion as he intended.  The people there did not respond significantly to his ministry.  "Early records state that Crow's ministry at the Siloam Church was began under great dis-couragement.  'But few could be drawn out to hear the Gospel, while crowds were assembled at places of amusement and dissipation.'  . . . during his ministry the church membership increased to thirty-nine members."   The Siloam Church would go on later to cast wide influ-ence in the town of Marion and across the state of Alabama.  The wicked of Marion would eventually come to repent their sins and make the town the center of the Baptist faith in the state.  But in 1829, Charles was highly discouraged by his results there, which amounted to adding, on average, only 3.75 members for each year at Siloam.

"After long prayer and contemplation, Charles Crow resigned his pas-torate of the Siloam Baptist Church . . . and joined other members of his family and friends in the Oakmulgee community joining the church there by letter."   The years at Siloam may have had discouraging results for Charles, but his contribution to God's work outside Marion was greatly successful.  These were the years when his experience and organizational abilities were to shine brightly in his work with the Cahaba Baptist As-sociation and the Alabama Baptist Convention.