Baptist church built by slaves is restored

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Posted 1:50PM on Tuesday, October 15, 2002

ST. CATHERINE ISLAND - Freed slaves built the Nicholsonboro Baptist Church 132 years ago. After years of deterioration, a four-year restoration project has returned it to its original state. The congregation hopes to open it to the public soon as a museum and open it to the public for tours. When the slaves were freed in 1870, they moved to the mainland and bought 200 acres near a creek outside Savannah for their community. For $15, they bought an acre for a proper praying place under pine trees and built their first church. Clapboards were nailed atop each other until a cube formed. It was covered with wooden shingles and a tiny belfry and faced a street of oyster shells. On Monday, Deacon Herbert Battise pulled a string and rang that bell. ``The bell is original,'' he said, standing in the church built by 18 freed slaves. He faced pews constructed of pine boards and looked up at a platform barely the width of a tabletop. It was the choir loft. Battise will stand there again next week and explain how everything's been restored to look just like it did long ago. Freshly painted slatted walls don't look too fresh. Age marks from dust and distress were kept intact. The potbellied stove in the corner remained tarnished. No one filled the gap above the back door. The doorknob that had been tugged at by the 18 original members wasn't polished. And no one removed the thick swinging shutters covering the four windows. The newness looks old, which is what the congregation sought. To Bernice Battise, Herbert's wife, the structure looks beautiful. ``I'm real pleased with it,'' she said. ``You don't smooth things out, make it look like new; you try to retain what it looked at that time. We're proud and happy to get the job completed.'' The house of worship was a place the former slaves would walk from to be baptized in the creek. But they later walked from the sanctuary for good, preferring the grander church nearly 100 feet away. Later, the first sanctuary became the ``feasting house'' for church dinners. It eventually started deteriorating, sitting on a lot surrounded by grass and pines. The Rev. Eugene Pringle imagined the holiness the freed men felt while worshipping there. ``I'm sure it was very lively and spirit-filled,'' Pringle said.