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First Baptist Church of Walnut Hills dates to a congregation before the Civil War, but officially founded in 1863. By the early 1900’s it was a core institution in the African American community, in Walnut Hills and beyond.
The Trustees of First Baptist generously allowed WHHS to view their archives. Among the treasures, we found registers of members from early in the 20th century (exact dates are unclear, but certainly before 1910). This is far from a complete list of parishioners, but it does includes more than 250 names.
Jayden Randolph Alston (Xavier) used this document to create a database of the members and their addresses. He also located 92 buildings where members lived at this time. (A red dot indicates a building where at least one member lived.)
Several things are notable in Jayden’s map of members’ homes. First, there are only a few members who lived south of McMillan. Probably these were domestic servants living with the families who employed them, but who still maintained a connection to the heart of the African American community in the northern part of Walnut Hills. Second, while many of the homes were concentrated east of McMillan along Chapel and Lincoln (as we would expect for the Black community at this time), there is a clear pattern of settlement north and west, into the are that would become part of Washington Terrace in a decade or so. Even this early, Blacks living west of Gilbert and north of Lincoln were well connected into the heart of the historic African American community east of Gilbert and north of Taft.
As we continue to build out the censuses for Walnut Hills on HistoryForge, we will use Jayden’s database to identify not only where members of First Baptist lived but also who they were — occupations, family structures, education levels and other information from the censuses.
To see the complete list of homes for First Baptist Members in HistoryForge:
- Go to walnuthills.historyforge.net > Data > Buildings
- Click on the FILTER button (left side) and select the Field Name Description.
- In the right text box, enter #1stBaptistMember
- Click SUBMIT.