Richard Johnson Mays, a circuit rider, began preaching in 1832, although he wasn’t ordained until 1841. Mays is credited with building at least six Baptist churches and helped found the Florida Baptist Convention. He is buried at Concord Baptist Church (aka Concord Missionary Baptist Church) on a hill in the Greenville countryside of Madison County, in the now vanished community of Concord.
Early preachers often shared churches, and Baptist preacher Mays may have held services at the First Presbyterian Church in Monticello. It was built in a Greek Revival style using native wood, with the bricks hauled by oxcarts from South Carolina. Though a fire destroyed the church, most of the original glass windowpanes survived, according to the church website, and the church was rebuilt in 1866. The cone-shaped steeple on a square pedestal
In 1839, Madison County commissioners set aside an area on Meeting Street (now Avenue) for three protestant churches: Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian. Only the Baptist church remains at the corner of Meeting Avenue and Base Street.
The 1898 sanctuary of the Pioneer Hickstown Baptist Church, now the First Baptist Church of Madison, was moved one block southwest in 1956 to make way for a new sanctuary. Located at West Pickney Street and South Orange Street, the Original First Baptist Church now serves as a Sunday school building. The Queen Anne style architecture is attributed to the Rev. Stephen Crockett, an Englishman who served as pastor at the time. Crockett’s design is unusual for the time and place with an octagonal interior plan. The Rev. Richard Johnson Mays was one of the original founders.
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