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Quick facts

Beginnings

The first Baptist congregation in Fredericksburg took shape around 1803. It was composed of both free and enslaved people of color as well as white folks.

The present site

By the late 1830s, this ethnically mixed congregation of Baptists had begun meeting for worship on our present site. At one point during this period, 75 percent of the congregation was African American.

Division

In 1854, white members of the congregation built a separate structure for themselves in another location. African American members of what had once been a united congregation continued to worship and gather at the old site where they then constituted an independent congregation.

Strong leaders

Our congregation has been blessed with strong, stable leadership, beginning with Rev. George Dixon, our first African American pastor who boldly led the way in difficult years after the Civil War. From 1922 to 1962, Rev. B.H. Hester ministered with vision and hope to the educational and spiritual needs of the community. Since 1962, we have been shepherded by the Spirit-led, forward-moving Rev. Lawrence A. Davies, who also served for twenty years as the city's first African American mayor.

A history infused with God's holy power

Pastor Lawrence Davies

We trace our history as Baptists in Fredericksburg to the early 1800s, and we trace our history as an independent congregation to 1854. (Click here for a listing of more than 600 individuals who were members of this congregation in 1854.)

Since those early years -- despite many pains and sorrows, despite many obstacles and roadblocks -- we the people of Shiloh Baptist Church (Old Site) have joyfully embraced God's redeeming love, a love that we still find powerfully manifested in the life and witness of Jesus.

It's a love that continues to call us. From those earliest years, we have felt called as individuals and as a congregation to embody God's liberating ways in all that we do.

In keeping faith with that redeeming love, we have been enabled to have an empowered impact on our community and our world. This hasn't been our doing. It's the been the work of God's own Spirit, the same Spirit that was at work in Christ Jesus.

We acknowledge that not every moment of our history as a congregation has been glorious. Not every moment has been up to God's standards. Yet ours is a history that we feel honored to claim, for it is a history that that has long been infused with God's holy power. Thanks be to God, who has not only kept us from falling but has again and again opened doors that we were unable to see.

John Washington's memoirs: A glimpse into history

In 1854, when we became an independent African American congregation, one of our members was an enslaved resident of Fredericksburg named John Washington. In the summer of 1862, while Union troops were camped across the Rappahannock River, John Washington swam to freedom. His memoirs about life in Fredericksburg in the mid-1800s, including the role of this congregation, now has been published under the title A Slave No More. As of 2010, the National Geographic Channel was preparing a documentary on his life and his descendants, including a visit that two of his descendants made to Shiloh Old Site for our annual Homecoming service on October 10, 2010.

You can learn more about John Washington and the similar escape to freedom of other enslaved residents of Fredericksburg by clicking here.

Early membership roll

More than 600 names transcribed from our hand-written membership roll in the period of 1854 through 1856 can be viewed by clicking here. Some of these individuals later became founders of two congregations in Washington, D.C., Shiloh Baptist Church and Zion Baptist Church.

Note: Other helpful links will be added to this page later

These links will include a variety of information and photos. However, since this enhanced history section is not yet ready, you may want to examine some of our older web pages.

Keep in mind, however, that these older pages have some out-of-date formatting. They're from a previous incarnation of our web site. So depending on your browser and monitor settings, they may or may not display as nicely as they should.To access these older pages, click here.

Download a Black History Month PowerPoint presentation

One of our members, Herman Griffin, creates an annual Black History Month PowerPoint presentation. You can learn about it by clicking here.


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