Some Early History of Louisiana Baptists
By W. D. Powell, 1915Baptists entered Louisiana from Mississippi as early as 1798. Eld. B. E. Chancy began missionary labors in St. Feliciana Parish. The French Government allowed no form of worship than that of Roman Catholicism and refused to let him preach and imprisoned him. He obtained his release under promise to desist from further efforts to preach and soon afterwards died.
Shortly afterwards a church was organized a few miles from Baton Rouge and in 1802 Rev. Ezra Courtney emigrated from South Carolina and served this young church in Louisiana and churches in Mississippi.
About 1816 the Mississippi Society for Baptist Domestic and Foreign Missions was organized. This body sent Rev. James A. Ronaldson as a missionary into Louisiana. He extended his labors as far South as New Orleans where a church was organized in 1818. In the same year the Louisiana Convention was formed with a total membership of five churches. The Home Mission Society of the American Triennial Convention began labors in New Orleans as early as 1814.
In 1842 Rev. Russell Holman was sent from this state as missionary to New Orleans by the Missionary Board of the Triennial Convention. In 1854 Coliseum Place Church was organized.
======================= [From The Kentucky Mission Monthly, January, 1915, p. 6; via SBTS Archives, Adam Winters. The title is supplied. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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