James H. DeVotie

James H. DeVotie (1814–1891) was a Baptist minister in the American South. Born in Oneida County, New York, he was a pastor in South Carolina, Alabama and Georgia. He was a co-founder of Howard College in Marion, Alabama, later known as Samford University near Birmingham. He was a long-time trustee of Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He served as a Confederate chaplain during the Civil War. After the war, he worked for the Southern Baptist Convention.

James H. DeVotie
BornSeptember 24, 1814
Oneida County, New York
DiedFebruary 16, 1891(1891-02-16) (aged 76)
EducationFurman Theological Seminary
OccupationPastor
Spouse(s)Margaret Noble DeVotie
Georgia L. Amoss DeVotie
Children5, including Noble Leslie DeVotie
Military career
Allegiance Confederate States of America (1861–1865)
Service/branchConfederate States Army
Years of service1861–1865
RankChaplain

Early life

James Harvey DeVotie was born on September 24, 1814 in Oneida County, New York, to Presbyterian parents.[1][2] His father died when DeVotie was a child. At the age of seventeen, he moved to Savannah, Georgia, where one of his uncle lived.[1] Because his uncle was a Baptist, DeVotie joined the Baptist Church in 1831, when he was baptized by Reverend Henry O. Wyer in Savannah.[1]

DeVotie studied at the Furman Theological Seminary in South Carolina.[1][2]

Ministry

DeVotie was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1832.[1] From 1833 to 1835, he served as the minister of the Baptist church in Camden, South Carolina.[1][2] He then served as a Baptist minister in Montgomery, Alabama from 1835 to 1836.[1] He served as the minister of the First Baptist Church in Tuscaloosa from 1836 to 1840.[1][3] He then served as the pastor of Siloam Baptist Church in Marion, Alabama from 1840 to 1854.[1][4][5] He also served as the minister of Hopewell Baptist Church near Marion from 1854 to 1855.[1]

He served at the First Baptist Church of Columbus, Georgia from 1856 to 1870.[1][2] In 1858, he was responsible for paving for the way for the erection of a new church building,[1] which still stands today. The new building cost US$28,000, all of which was paid for by 1860.[1] During the American Civil War of 1861-1865, DeVotie served as a chaplain in the Confederate States Army to the Second Regiment of Georgia Volunteers.[1][2] He also took care of the poor, widows and orphans during the war.[1] He then served as the minister of the Baptist church in Griffin, Georgia from 1870 to 1877.[1]

Roles in the Baptist Church

DeVotie was the founder of the Alabama Baptist Bible Society and served as its President from 1836 to 1856.[6] He was also a co-founder of The Alabama Baptist in 1836.[1] He served as the Secretary of the Domestic and Indian Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1855 to 1856.[1] In 1877, he served on the Home Mission Board and later the Georgia Baptist State Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.[1][7] In this latter role, he attempted to convert former slaves to the Baptist faith.[7]

DeVotie served as the President of the Board of Trustees of the antebellum Alabama Female Athenaeum in Tuscaloosa.[1] He was a co-founder of Howard College in Marion, which later became Samford University near Birmingham.[4] He was the owner of the land upon which Samford was built, which he donated to the Southern Baptist Convention for this purpose.[8][9] He served as the President of its Board of Trustees for two years, and as a regular trustee for fifteen years.[1] He also served on the Board of Trustees of Mercer University in Macon, Georgia for twenty-two years.[1] Additionally, he served as the President of the Board of Trustees of the Columbus Public Schools.[1]

Personal life, death and legacy

DeVotie married Margaret Noble in 1835.[1] They had five children.[1] One of their sons, Noble Leslie DeVotie, was the founder of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and later served as a Baptist Confederate chaplain.[1] After his first wife died in 1872, he married Georgia L. Amoss in 1873.[4]

DeVotie died on February 16, 1891.[2][4] The James H. DeVotie Papers are kept in the William R. Perkins Library at Duke University.[10] The DeVotie Legacy Society at Samford University was founded in 1995.[8]

References
  1. Boykin, Samuel (1881). History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia. 2. Atlanta, Georgia: Jas P. Harrison & Co. pp. 187–191. ISBN 9781579789145. OCLC 244107338.
  2. Grady McWhiney (ed.), Warner O. Moore, Jr. (ed.), Robert F. Pace (ed.), "Fear God and Walk Humbly": The Agricultural Journal of James Mallory, 1843-1877, Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 2013, pp. 494-495
  3. Luther Quentin Porch, History of the First Baptist Church, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, 1968, p. 129
  4. Samford University history: Biographies
  5. Julia Murfee Lovelace, A History of Siloam Baptist Church, Marion, Alabama, Birmingham Publishing Company, 1943, p. 15
  6. Wayne Flynt, Alabama Baptists: Southern Baptists in the Heart of Dixie, Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama Press, 1998, p. 31
  7. Daniel W. Stowell, Rebuilding Zion: The Religious Reconstruction of the South, 1863-1877, Oxford University Press, 1998
  8. Samford University: DeVotie Legacy Society
  9. Mitchell Bennett Garrett, William R. Snell, Janet Snell, Sixty Years of Howard College, 1842-1902, Howard College, 1927, p. 19
  10. George C. Rable, Civil Wars: Women and the Crisis of Southern Nationalism, Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1991, p. 380
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