The Erasmus Miller Owen Family, part 26
Last week we began to take a closer look at just what exactly Erasmus Miller Owen was doing in Brown County, Texas during the 1880's and 1890's, and we discovered that, contrary to the picture that the Baptist publications paint, he was not just the pastor of the Baptist Church in May during that time. Of course, we had already established that during the middle of the 1890's he was the pastor of the church in Wolf Valley, which was in the May postal district but was not the actual First Baptist Church of May (as it has come to be called today). Aside from the eight or so years that he was pastor of that church, though (since we don't know exactly when he relinquished that duty), it doesn't appear that he spent much of his time in permanent pastoring roles.
Not only did we learn that none of his churches were full-time (although the Wolf Valley church may have been at least 1/2 or 3/4 time since it grew to be relatively large for a frontier church), but we also discovered that a year or so was probably the longest amount of time that he spent as pastor of any of the other churches. It appears that his focus was mostly on starting churches, a.k.a. mission work. In fact, the dissertation that we looked at last time stated that he was a pastor and missionary of the Pecan Valley Baptist Association.
But what, exactly, did that entail?
Page 113 of A History of Pecan Valley and Brown County Baptist Associations says:
%20-%20details.jpg) |
| A History of Pecan Valley and Brown County Baptist Associations By William A. Todd page 113 |
Apparently Erasmus was either not one who was "very much interested in filing big reports" or the gentleman writing this dissertation decided not to include those in his book. Previous pages recited details from some specific missionary reports; they tell us that the associational missionaries also spent time delivering "exhortations," visiting and praying with families, conducting funerals, ordaining deacons and ministers, holding protracted meetings (revivals), and building churches. So, they basically served as traveling pastors, then. In addition, the missionaries were heavily involved with starting new churches.
Most of these duties are pretty cut and dry, but what about those "exhortations"? The dictionary says that an exhortation in a strong urging to do something. I think in the case of a preacher, it is also a strong urging not to do something. Although I haven't come across any specific references in relation to Erasmus, the temperance movement was a big thing in Texas during his time in Brown County. For those of you unfamiliar with the movement, it was a social and political movement that aimed to eliminate alcohol consumption and thus remediate the social ills associated with it. (Erasmus' son Conrad would actively promote temperance during the early 1900's.)
And how about dancing?
Take a look at this book that I happened to find on the UPenn Online Books Page:
Although originally written in the 1840's, it was republished by the Baptists in 1893. (You can find the book on the Hathitrust website in case anyone wants to read it. I was going to embed it but I was afraid I would completely mess up the code for this post if I tried!)
If you're not sure you want to take the time to look through it, here is the table of contents so you can see the fascinating arguments the author makes:
Chapter two is particularly interesting, as it also condemns card-playing and drinking, and even warns against allowing young children to dance at home. It also pays specific mind to the types of "modern" dancing that are a problem: the German Waltz, French round dances, and even square-dancing:
The book was calling these modern dances, even though they had been around since the 1400's, I guess because it was the type of dancing that was still done at balls and in groups of mixed company. (Can you imagine if the author, or any of the Baptist preachers of Erasmus' day actually saw today's modern dancing? Yikes!)
I'm sure Erasmus exhorted the members of his church (as well as his children) to avoid dancing in every way, shape, form, and situation. Not only do some family stories recount how strict he was as a father, but this set of values was passed down through the generations of his daughter (my great great grandmother) Clara, so it must have really been emphasized as she was growing up.
I wonder if this had anything to do with the fact that the Baptist churches of the day only called their pastors for one year at a time . . . .
Yes, you heard that right. At the time, churches followed the practice of calling their pastor for only one year at a time. I don't know for how long that was the norm, but when Erasmus' son Conrad was called to his first church in 1903, it was for only one year. (They renewed the call after that, but he had to be called again nonetheless.)
Page 49 of this dissertation presents an excerpt of what the association's Committee on Pastoral Call and Support had to say about the practice in 1888:
%201888%20-%20detail.jpg) |
| A History of Pecan Valley and Brown County Baptist Association By William A Todd page 49 |
Maybe the churches decided to adopt this practice so they could "try out" a pastor and make sure they liked him, or so they could get rid of him more easily if they decided they didn't like him so much anymore. As I mentioned before, it doesn't appear that Erasmus served more than a year as pastor of any Texas church other than the one in Wolf Valley (and of course, later, in Emma, where he was placed as a missionary pastor). Perhaps his strict stance on drinking and entertainment was a factor.
Or, maybe there was another area of discontent among church members . . .
I came across a series of articles published in the Texas Baptist Standard newspaper in 1897; the topic was "pastoral visiting." Super interesting. I am going to put up some excerpts here, because it brought up aspects of the time and occupation that I never really thought about before. Of course, for those of you who have spent a lot of time as, say, the secretary for a pastor, you're probably already well aware of what a typical day in the occupation entails. But for the rest of us, I think it really gives an insightful glimpse into what the life of the Reverend Erasmus Miller Owen may have been like:
2.JPG)
2.JPG)
2.JPG)
2.JPG)
These excerpts all came from part one of the article, and address the reasons that the author saw the issue as a problem. (There is a link, right there in the words "part one" that will take you to the newspaper on the Baylor website. It will be easier to read if you click on the "viewer" button near the bottom right of the image window; pay attention to what page it is before you open the viewer, which takes you to the first page of that edition. Or, you can just see the whole four part series - I combined all of the pages into a pdf - here.)
2.JPG)
We've seen newspaper articles about much of this, but when put this way, we can see much more clearly how it all added up. Finally, part four sums up Rev. Smith's argument:
2.JPG)
and
2.JPG)
2.JPG)
%201901%20-%20detail.jpg)
.jpg) |
| Brownwood Bulletin 23 August 1894 |
.jpg) |
| Brownwood Bulletin 20 June 1895 |
Here we see, a year later, that Erasmus was reporting on the work of the State Sunday School Board at the associational Sunday school convention. (You can read more about the formation and work of this convention on pages 96-98 of the dissertation.)
%20part%201.JPG)
%20part%202.JPG) |
| Baptist Standard 3 March 1898 |
And here we see another type of associational meeting. I'm not sure what exactly a "missionary mass meeting" was, but it sounds like it might have been a meeting of all of the missionaries in the area, or perhaps a meeting to discuss missions in the area. Whatever it was, Erasmus was preaching the opening sermon of the three-day event.
%20part%201.JPG) |
| Baptist Standard 5 May 1898 |
Once again, we see Erasmus giving some kind of presentation at an associational meeting. This was actually another fifth Sunday meeting, as can be seen from the continuation on page 13, and by the fact that the annual meetings were always in August. The other pastor presenting with him was C. C. Smith, a pastor who shows up in the May area during the years that Erasmus drops out of the national and Texas Baptist records for a time. And finally, the last newspaper mention that I've found for Erasmus in Brown County (other than later articles about the founding of Howard Payne):
.JPG) |
| Baptist Standard 14 July 1898 |
This last article is a little different from the rest, because Erasmus is not referred to as "E. M. Owen(s)". I came across a blog post about researching Baptist history which said, "Older preachers often went by their initials rather than their names." (I guess that would be why we always see him using his initials!) But here, he is referred to as "Elder Owens." Certain entries from the dissertation used the term "Elder" for him as well, possibly indicating that he was not a regular pastor at the time or in that area. (I'm not sure; every time I think I've figured out a pattern, I find a reference that ruins my theory!) Oh! and in case you didn't notice, Uncle Ras is named in this article as well.
Okay. Switching gears just a bit, did you notice how the first selection from the dissertation in this post (waaaay up at the beginning!) said that the early missionaries met "under spreading trees, brush arbors, one room school houses and churches"? We know that the original building used by the Wolf Valley church was a one-room, dirt-floored log structure that was moved into place for the use of the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and the Wolf Valley school. I've looked, but haven't been able to come up with anything about the May church, and haven't stumbled across anything about the Pleasant Valley church - not that I can recall, anyway! But, I found a very interesting newspaper article while working on my last post.
 |
15 July 2011 |
 |
11 June 2012 |
 |
| Bethel Baptist Church Brown County, Texas |
.jpg) |
| Zephyr Gospel Tabernacle Brown County, Texas |
In 1898....Townspeople donated labor and material to erect this open air shelter and to rebuild it after damage from a 1909 cyclone that devastated Zephyr. Many towns in Texas once had tabernacles like this for summer church revivals, political rallies, and social events. The Zephyr Home Demonstration Club led community restoration of this structure in 1976.
