St. Bartley Primitive Baptist Church

St. Bartley Primitive Baptist Church in Huntsville, Madison County, is recognized as the oldest African American congregation in Alabama. Informally organized in the 1810s and formally established, with approval from Huntsville city officials, in 1820, St. Bartley was one of the first public spaces in the state where Black Alabamians could express their cultural and religious beliefs.

The congregation was founded by William Harris, a formerly enslaved individual raised on a cotton plantation in Oglethorpe County, Georgia. Harris received permission from his White owner, John Harris, to become an ordained minister in the Baptist faith. The church he founded and ministered in Huntsville was originally named Huntsville African Baptist Church and later became Primitive Baptist, after doctrine schisms among Baptists beginning in the 1830s led conservative Baptists to adhere to principles that were considered more “primitive” or “original” to Calvinist beliefs, including temperance. Harris, and later his grandson Bartley (for whom the church was ultimately named), were ordained by White elders of the Baptist faith. Prior to John Harris’s death, he granted freedom to William Harris and his family. While his family stayed on the Georgia plantation, William began an informal preaching circuit to other plantations, eventually settling in Huntsville.

William Harris worked odd jobs for Huntsville plantation owners, and, while doing so, convinced them to allow the people they enslaved to attend Christian services. Beginning in the late 1810s, city commissioners allowed Harris to use the “Old Georgia” Cemetery, the only burial ground in the city for enslaved individuals, as a place of worship. The roughly two-acre cemetery was located near the present-day corner of Madison Street and St. Clair Avenue. Given the laws governing Black individuals and White fear of slave uprisings, Harris most likely had to guarantee to the White wealthy elite that worship services were not intended to cause unrest and or promote liberation among the enslaved congregants. The African Baptist Church did, however, provide a relatively safe space and primary outlet for congregants to express themselves and commune over the struggles they endured. Services could only be held at night to prevent disruptions in farm work and to minimize disruption to the neighboring White households.

Bartley Harris

The congregation erected a church building sometime in the late 1810s, after the organization of Old Georgia Cemetery in 1818 and before the congregation’s official organization in 1820. By that time, William Harris had endeared himself to many of the White leaders in the community, including the commissioners who authorized construction of the church building. In 1821, the church joined the White Flint River Baptist Association, which aided in the growth of the congregation by connecting it with a larger support network of Baptist churches, providing emergency funds to churches in need, and making accessible mission and education resources. At that time, church members numbered 76; by the time they petitioned for dismissal from the association in 1868, they had grown to 1,950. Sometime before 1850, Harris moved his family from Georgia, and they settled as free sharecroppers in the Harvest community of Madison County.

The original church building was destroyed by U.S. troops during the Civil War. Much of what is known about the original building comes from the detailed witness testimony that the church submitted to the U.S. Small Claims Court in 1903. Witnesses insisted that the U.S. government repay the church for destroying the building, which had been paid for and built by enslaved church members and with contributions from White enslavers. These testimonies indicate that the church was built in 1856 or 1857 and was approximately 50-60 feet in length, with 12-13 foot ceilings, oak studding and framing, a shingled roof, and a brick chimney. The 1903 testimonies indicated that U.S. soldiers and officers dismantled the church around 1864 and used the materials for military housing and other purposes. The compiled testimonies also indicated that the church was used only as a place of worship, and it, therefore, did not serve the Confederate Army or oppose U.S. forces in any way. A claim was submitted for $1,987.99, the estimated price of materials and labor in 1903. The U.S. Claims Court, through the 63rd Congress (1915), awarded $909 to the church, the estimated cost of the building at the time of its destruction.

According to local oral history, during the Civil War, Huntsville’s African Baptist Church acted on behalf of both Black and White communities. White citizens supporting the Confederacy turned to Bartley Harris, the church’s second pastor and grandson of founder William Harris, to keep their valuables safe from U.S. troops. During the first occupation of the city by Brig. Gen. Ormsby M. Mitchel, under Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell, U.S. troops demanded that local citizens surrender any valuables to offset the expense of the war. Upon Harris’s refusal to comply, the troops dismantled and burned the building. After the war, Bartley returned all valuables, which he had secured prior to the church's destruction, to whomever owned them, and the congregation reportedly received an estimated $5,000 to rebuild the church from the federal government.

Around 1867, the church, under the direction of elder William Gaston, established the Huntsville Graded and Industrial School, with Gaston as the first principal and teacher. Gaston also served as an associate minister for the church for 35 years. He and other leaders of Black churches in Huntsville helped establish William Hooper Councill High School, a public school that educated Black students from 1892 to 1966.

In 1870, the pastor, deacons, and trustees of the church purchased land on Henry Street (present-day Fountain Row SW), not far from the cemetery location of the original church. Also in 1870, Gaston and the leaders of three other congregations formed the Indian Creek Primitive Baptist Association (ICPBA) for newly freed African Americans seeking to find community within their faith. In 1872, the congregation built a new brick church with large Gothic-style windows.

Sometime during the late nineteenth century, the church changed its name to Indian Creek Steadfast Primitive Baptist Church. It was rededicated as Saint Bartley Steadfast Primitive Baptist Church before 1909, in honor of Bartley Harris, who died in 1896. Bartley was widely known in the region for performing mass baptisms in the Big Spring, Huntsville’s primary water source. He supposedly baptized as many as 300 people in one day and more than 3,000 over his lifetime.

Baptism at Big Spring

Following Bartley Harris’s death, congregants selected Felix Jordan as the church’s third pastor. He served as pastor for the organizational meeting of the National Primitive Baptist Convention in Huntsville in 1907. Elias Patton, fourth pastor, served as the moderator of the ICPBA and only served as Bartley’s minister for a short time. Fifth pastor Richard Moore served until his death. The church made about $7,000 worth of improvements under his leadership.

Under its sixth pastor, Amos Robinson, St. Bartley’s experienced tremendous change. In 1964, the church at Oak Avenue (now Fountain Row) and Williams Street was leveled as part of Huntsville’s urban renewal projects. The congregation purchased land at 3020 Belafonte Ave. NW to rebuild and expand the church’s footprint. The present structure was partially funded by a mortgage loan from First Alabama Bank in Huntsville. At the time, the church had more than 400 active members, and during Robinson’s leadership, 500 more joined. He ministered through the WEUP radio station and also frequented auto-repair garages, barbershops and beauty shops, grocery stores, and other businesses to spread the gospel. Robinson was also active in Primitive Baptist organizations, education, and ministries. Amos Robinson also encouraged elder Isaiah Robinson to develop a Christian education program at the church.

In 1972, Vernon Castle Stewart became the seventh pastor of St. Bartley. Under his leadership, the church liquidated its debts, paid off the mortgage in 1979 and made improvements to the church building, including a finished basement that was dedicated as the Elder Amos Robinson Fellowship Hall. The church once again became more involved with the community. Elders William T. Gladys and Jaymes Robert Mooney served as the eighth and ninth pastors, respectively. Gladys led several building renovation projects, including the additions of a choir loft, pulpit area, audiovisual room, and the St. Bartley Activity Center. Mooney began serving in 2017 and led the congregation to establish “The Bartley Bridge,” a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization focused on community engagement and improvement through education and entrepreneurship.

In 1970, the Alabama Historical Association erected and dedicated a historical marker at the 1872-1964 location of St. Bartley Primitive Baptist Church. The marker, located on Williams Ave. between Gallatin St. and Fountain Row SW, recognizes the early milestones of the church, the different church locations, founder William Harris, and ministers up through Amos Robinson.