Our Good Witness

Yesterday I told you about the video that was produced for Hayes Barton Baptist Church’s 75^th anniversary.  In my preparation for writing this blog, I uncovered another treasure that was part of that celebration; it is a book entitled:  “Seventy-Five Years of Ministry:  Hayes Barton Baptist Church.”  It was researched and written by Sarah D. Williamson who is still a member and served for many years as the church’s historian.  (The book was edited by one of our current historians, Cathy J. Morris.)  A person can get to know someone from what they have written so that is how I have gotten to know Sarah just a bit, through the 75^th anniversary book.  She also, like Virginia Eagle from yesterday’s post, is prominent in the video that was made ten years ago.

The Sarah I’ve come to know from the book is someone who cares about history and about the details of history.  The book is filled with precise addresses, dates, and dollar figures, right down, in many instances, to the penny.  In the book, Sarah meticulously lays out the progression of the church from 1926 to 2001.  All the pastors are mentioned, even the interims.  All the issues that continue to define who Hayes Barton Baptist Church is today are discussed.   She writes, for example, that at the second meeting of the church, members “took an offering for missions,” noting that “From its very beginnings, Hayes Barton Baptist Church has supported missions.”

Sarah appears first in the video in a segment entitled “Beginnings.”  In it, she talks about how the land for a church was purchased in 1922 by the Raleigh City Baptist Council and that by 1925 “there was a desire for a Baptist Church” on the land.  She recalls the Sunday morning in 1944 when mortgage papers were burned in a wooden offering plate.  “It gives me goose bumps to even think about it because I knew what [paying off the mortgage] meant,” Sarah says.

“I stood at the drugstore and watched,” Sarah says of the 1962 fire.  Someone had called to tell her that the church was burning.  She writes in the history:  “Tragedy struck. On September 5, 1962, while driving past the church shortly before 6:00 a.m., Lester O’Neal saw fire!  The sanctuary and the entire part of the church built in 1928 were destroyed.  The Educational Building was damaged by water and smoke.”

In the “Voices of Faith, Hope, and Love” part of the video, Sarah recalls that she was in the first living nativity program in 1950, noting how everyone had to “wrap up” to stay warm.  “My mother and father were in it.  My children were in it,” she says.  “Three generations of a single family.”

G. Wesley Williams notes that Sarah was inducted into the Raleigh Hall of Fame in 2007.  “Sarah was the ultimate champion of historic preservation,” says Wesley.   And Ed Morris, one of our current historians, says of Sarah:  “She has been well respected in many circles around Raleigh for nearly half a century for her knowledge of Raleigh's history.”  She determined through genealogical research, according to Ed, that “the Williamsons once owned the land where the church is now along with most of the surrounding neighborhood.”  

“She was also known for her efforts to promote Historic Preservation in Raleigh, Wake County, and North Carolina,” says Ed.  “For many years she was active in the restoration of the Capitol and continued as a board member of the State Capitol Foundation. She was active in the Mordecai Square Historic Society which became Capital Area Preservation (CAP) and with Preservation North Carolina.  She was very much an activist in the 1970s and 1980s in saving a number of Raleigh's most valued landmarks.”

There is no doubt that Sarah Williamson plays an important role in the history of Raleigh and of Hayes Barton Baptist Church.  Not only is she the main writer of the church history, she has also been a main player in it.  She has been a witness to many of the events she writes about.  And as for future events, Sarah says in the video that the church needs to be a good neighbor as it moves forward for “if a church can’t be a good neighbor, how can we really be a good witness of God’s will?”

Sarah has been our “good witness” of God’s will through the years at Hayes Barton Baptist Church.  We know much of our heritage because of her work. She has, indeed, been our “good witness.”