The Cyclopedia of the Colored Baptists of Alabama: Their Leaders and Their Work

by Charles Octavius Boothe

The Tuscumbia, Barton and Sheffield churches were built up under his labors. In the formation of the Muscle Shoals Association at Tuscumbia in 1869, he was one of the leading spirits. He relates the following incidents:

“Before the close of the war I was captured by the Federal troops and carried to Decatur, where I joined their army. As I had a crippled foot I was allowed to remain with the commissary department. While we were camped at Athens, General Forest came upon us and defeated, captured and killed until we were almost literally wiped out of existence. I had been kind to some little white children by which I had won their love and, of course, the love of their parents. Therefore, in the time of danger, I rushed to this house, and the good people hid me and changed my clothes. Hence when I was found, I was taken for one of the gentleman’s slaves. When I was permitted by the man to try to return to Tuscumbia and had gone some distance, I was caught by deserters from the Southern army, who voted to shoot me. They bound me and kept me over night, intending to do away with me the next day. It was in a lonely desert on the Tennessee river. I could not sleep, and so all night I prayed to God, and all night the wives of the men prayed for “the poor nigger”—prayed to their cruel husbands. Their cries and tears prevailed, and I was robbed and let go after I had vowed not to reveal their whereabouts. I left loving God and believing in his faithfulness to his people as I had never done before.”

For years Mr. Northcross has been the trusted treasurer of the Muscle Shoals Association. He is the pastor of the largest church, and has the best edifice, in northern Alabama.

Oden, Rev. M. C. B., of Sylacauga, was born in Charleston, S. C., December 24, 1839. He was baptized by Rev. J. J. D. Renfroe, D. D., in September, 1865, and in 1873 he was set apart to the work of the gospel ministry, Rev. W. Wilks, and others, officiating as presbytery. He, in speaking of the rise of the work in this section, says: “I came from South Carolina in 1858, a Methodist. There were nineteen or twenty other slaves on our place beside myself. I, and one other, professed to be Christians. The master of the place permitted us to hold prayer services, and allowed the slaves of his kin people to attend. The Lord blessed these meetings and at the close of the war this humble beginning was ready to unfold into the Harpersville Church. At the close of the war, I began to teach night and Sunday Schools, and thus introduced the study of letters, though in the Sunday School as well as in the night school, we had nothing but the ‘blue back speller.’” Brother Oden is an honorable, outspoken, industrious, prosperous man, whose hospitality is known far and wide. His home has often been an asylum of rest to the writer, as well as to other missionaries of Alabama of all denominations.

Mrs. Rebecca Pitts, Member Board of Trustees Woman’s State Convention, Uniontown, Ala.

O’Bryant, Rev. L. F., of Eufaula, the son of Frederick and Rose O’Bryant, was born on the Dent plantation in Barbour county, Ala., in the year 1860. In 1879 he was converted to the faith of the gospel under the preaching of Rev. Jerry Shorter, and was baptized into the Pleasant Grove Baptist Church. At the call of the above named church, he was set apart to the work of the gospel ministry in 1885 by Revs. J. Q. A. Wilhite, A. Gachet, J. D. Maddox, E. May and J. A. Alston, of Arkansas. Notwithstanding his educational advantages have been very meagre, he has, by constant study and observation, advanced to a fair knowledge of books. He is a loving husband, a successful pastor, a strong preacher, a genial associate, and carries sunshine everywhere. The writer was associated with him for some weeks in the institute work at Eufaula, and was truly delighted with his urbanity and innocent wit. He is a young man of hopeful prospects—if his present wise course should continue to the end. His father before him is a Baptist minister, whose life is held in high esteem, and hence the subject of this sketch comes into his public career having his own excellent personal graces savored by the good name of his revered ancestor.

Owens, Rev. A. J., of Moulton, is an ex-student of Selma University; he is an agreeable companion, a kind father, an orderly thinker and a forcible preacher. The writer has greatly enjoyed the hospitalities of his home and the abundance of his good humor.

Owens, Rev. Albert Franklyn, editor of the Baptist Leader and pastor at Mobile, was born in Wilcox county, Ala., January 1, 1854. Early in life he left Alabama for Louisiana, in which state he was led to exercise faith in the Son of God and was baptized into Little Mt. Zion Church by the Rev. G. Stemley, of Avoyelles Parish. In April, 1873, he was licensed to enter upon the work of the gospel ministry. At the call of the Third Baptist Church, Mobile, Ala., he was ordained to the functions of the ministerial office by the Common Street Baptist Church, New Orleans, La., May 28, 1877, by a council of which Rev. Marsena Stone, D. D., of Ohio, was chairman, and Rev. A. M. Newman was secretary. His longest and hitherto most prosperous pastorate has been with the church who called for his ordination, and whom he led to the purchase of their neat brick edifice on St. Anthony street.

Beginning with them in the spring of 1887, he left them for Uniontown, September, 1890, in excellent quarters and free from debt. This he did at such patient self-sacrifice as may be found in only a very few men of his age.