Abram Maer Poindexter, D.D., was born in Bertie Co., N.C., Sept. 22, 1809. His father was
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the Rev. Richard Poindexter, of Louisa Co., Va., who, on the occasion of his marriage with Mrs. Jordan, of North Carolina, removed to that State. Young Poindexter’s early educational advantages were good, and he applied himself closely to the ordinary studies preliminary to a college course. While still quite young he entered the Columbian College, but owing to feeble health his studies there were interrupted, and after a brief period he was compelled to abandon them and return to his home. In 1831 he made a profession of religion; in 1832 he was licensed to preach, and in 1834 he was ordained to the work of the gospel ministry. For some time before his ordination he was the companion, student, and co-laborer of the Rev. A.W. Clopton, the popular and useful pastor of Baptist churches in Charlotte Co., Va., from whose gifted mind and heart, as well as varied and ripe experience in pastoral duties, he derived valuable and life-long impressions for good.
Quite early in life Dr. Poindexter married Mrs. Eliza Craddock, a lady of great excellence of character, after which he resided in Halifax Co., Va., where most of his mature life was spent. From the very beginning of his ministry he displayed unusual talents, and was esteemed the most promising young minister of his time. As a preacher, Dr. Poindexter was deservedly held in very high regard, especially with large out-door assemblies, such as convene at Associational meetings. On such occasions his preaching was frequently distinguished by great fluency and power of speech, unusual vigor and depth of thought, a beautiful logical consecutiveness in the development of truth, and an earnestness and impetuosity of manner that swayed and moved the masses with resistless power. As a thinker he had but few equals. His intellect was clear, active, strong, and original. His thoughts were pre-eminently his own. He called no man master, excepting always the great Teacher. As an extemporaneous debater he stood almost alone among disputants; and so accurate was his method, so precise his arguments, so correct his style, that a verbatim report of his remarks would rarely require the least revision for publication. As an agent for the Columbian and Richmond Colleges he was greatly successful, while as secretary of the Southern Baptist Publication Society, and afterwards as co-secretary of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, he won a noble reputation for energy and executive ability. His impressive appeals in behalf of missions and education stimulated the zeal, enlisted the interest, and secured the contributions of large numbers throughout the South, and gave an impetus to those causes which they still feel. He was a man of deep convictions and intense feeling. His words were indeed the outer image of his inmost soul. He believed, and therefore he spoke; and when he spoke men had no hesitation in saying, here is a Christian man who will part with his life rather than with his convictions of right and duty.
Dr. Poindexter, like many of his brethren in the ministry, was called, in the providence of God, to pass through dark waters of affliction. Two promising sons were taken from him during the war, one by the accidental discharge of his own pistol, and the other at the head of his company, by a bullet of the enemy. The ravages of war swept away his estate; and to crown his sorrows his estimable wife soon passed away from his desolated home, leaving among the wrecks an only daughter, who has, since died, who was married to the Rev. J. B. Taylor, Jr., now of Wilmington, N.C. In 1843 the Columbian College conferred upon him the degree of D. D. He died May 7, 1872. ========= [William Cathcart, editor, The Baptist Encyclopedia, 1881; rpt. 1988. - jrd]
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