Page 69 - Pilgrims in Georgia

R Pilgrim Legacy in Later Georgia Churches

Baptist and Methodists

Though Baptist and Methodists Denominations would in time become the largest in the United States, the
establishment of their churches came after the early Georgia colony and Trustee period but owed much to the
Spiritual influence from Whitfield and Wesley and their time in the Georgia colony.

For the Baptists, almost unnoticed, it is reputed that “one or two” Baptists
arrived with the first settlers. Yet, over time others joined them to
eventually begin small Baptist fellowships in Savannah and Augusta. In 1745
Daniel Marshall having begun his ministry through the influence of George
Whitfield, began working his way down to Georgia, ministering and
preaching in almost every state along the way. In 1771 he moved to the
Augusta, Georgia area and organized Kiokee Baptist Church, the first formal
and continuing Baptist church in Georgia. Kiokee would become the
meeting place for the first Baptist Association in Georgia and the mother for
a number of Baptist Churches in the surrounding area. Having begun as a

trickle, before the end of the century at least 104 Baptist Churches were Kiokee Baptist Church
started in Georgia, many of them directly or indirectly due to the influence
of Daniel Marshall.
John Wesley would never come to Georgia again, or leave the Church of

England, but before independence was won in 1781, he ordained ministers
of Methodist Societies in the colonies with the authority to administer the
sacraments independently apart from the practice of the Church of
England. As a result, after his death the Methodist Societies would soon
form their own new denomination in the United States. By 1785/6 itinerant
ministers known as circuit riders, were being sent to Georgia and by 1787
the first Methodist church building in Georgia was erected as Grants
Meetinghouse, a forerunner of the First Methodist Church of Washington
Georgia. In 1788 Bishop Asbury held the states first annual conference. At
this first conference was Hope Hull, who would be later recognized as the

A Circuit Rider in the backcountry father of Georgia Methodism, and by 1790 they grown to 2,294 members.