The 19th<\/sup>-century Mount Sinai Free Will Baptist Church, at \u201cLittle Britain\u201d southwest of Lovettsville, has a history which is unique among the churches \u2013 black and white \u2013 in Loudoun County.<\/p>\n Its origins were in the Free Will Baptists of New England, especially Maine, who formed an anti-slavery society in 1843, and were vigorous campaigners for abolition. \u00a0After the Civil War, the Free Will Baptists established Storer College in Harpers Ferry \u2013 which had strong ties to Mount Sinai in Lovettsville.<\/p>\n During the Civil War, some Free Will Baptists joined the Union Army as soldiers or chaplains, while others travelled to accessible areas in the South to open schools and churches for newly freed slaves. One of these was Rev. Nathan C. Brackett who, considered to be physically unfit for the army due to a bronchial condition, became an agent for the U.S. Christian Commission, and was assigned to Phil Sheridan\u2019s Cavalry Corps in the lower Shendandoah Valley. At war\u2019s end, Brackett located in Harpers Ferry to conduct missionary work among formerly enslaved persons.\u00a0 Brackett used his dual positions with the Freedmen\u2019s Bureau and the Free Will Baptist missionary society, to start a school for freed slaves. Brackett and his colleagues also established schools in Charles Town, Martinsburg, and Shepherdstown.<\/p>\n By 1867, the school at Harpers Ferry grew into a teachers college, first known as the Storer Normal School, and later as Storer College. Storer trained many teachers for the black schools in Loudoun County and elsewhere, and eventually developed into a full four-year college.<\/p>\n Simultaneously, the Harpers Ferry-based Free Will Baptists established churches. In 1868, the Harpers Ferry Quarterly Meeting of the Free Will Baptists was organized, with three congregations in the West Virginia panhandle; they eventually expanding into Maryland (Pleasant Valley) and Virginia, including Lovettsville.<\/p>\n Mount Sinai beginnings<\/strong><\/p>\n Among those attending Storer College in the early 1880s, was Franklin Pierce Lewis of Lovettsville.\u00a0 Born free in 1857, Lewis was a son of Priscilla Lewis, a free person of color and a property owner in the Lovettsville community. On December 26, 1881, Franklin Lewis married Fenda (Fendee) Gore, the daughter of David and Susan A. Baker. When Lewis completed the first phase of his studies at Storer, probably in 1882, he came back to Loudoun and, in 1883, organized the Mount Sinai Free Will Baptist Church and school, according to various Free Will Baptist histories.\u00a0 In 1885, Lewis was ordained as a minister in Charles Town, and he assumed leadership of the Mount Sinai congregation shortly thereafter when the first pastor, one Rev. P.W. Johnson, died. He also served the Free Will Baptist Church in Pleasant Valley, on Garrett’s Mill Road, which still exists, and is now known as Mount Moriah Baptist Church.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In November 1883, the Loudoun Telephone<\/em>, a Republican newspaper published in Hamilton, reported that \u201cThe colored people have organized a Baptist congregation at Lovettsville, and have purchased land from J.W. Goodhart, on which to build a church. They seem to have manifested great interest in their church matters\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n No record of a land transaction with Jerome Goodhart (a cabinet maker who owned substantial land on the east side of the town of Lovettsville) has yet been found.\u00a0 The black Free Will Baptists did build their church at the intersection of Mountain Road and Britain Road, on property that had been owned by Adam and Mary Cooper. \u00a0In 1886, Adam transferred the property to Sallie Cooper. Sallie Mason Cooper had married Joshua F. Cooper in 1884; their relationship to Adam Cooper has not been determined, but they were all communicants at New Jerusalem Lutheran Church. Sally and Joshua F. Cooper clearly made part of the property available to the Mt. Sinai congregation, since the congregation began erecting a church on the property around this time.\u00a0 Interestingly, the Coopers never required the Mount Sinai congregation to purchase the property, and it\u2019s not even clear if they were paying rent.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t until 1947 \u2013 long after the demise of the Mount Sinai Church — that family members of the former church acquired title to the one-half acre on which the church and its adjoining cemetery were located.<\/p>\n The church building was dedicated on October 23, 1887, but both the church and the school \u2013 a public school during the week \u2013 were already in full operation by that time. It was the custom among many churches at the time not to dedicate a new building until all debts incurred for the church construction had been satisfied \u2013 and indeed, Rev. Lewis announced that the church was debt-free at the time of its dedication.<\/p>\n Even though we have not yet located any records of the congregation for this period, we know of a couple of events that took place prior to the building\u2019s dedication. On August 27, 1887, the first burial that we have been able to document, took place. This was of Ann America Paris<\/a> who had married Henry Bird in 1879 at New Jerusalem; she died in 1887 at 26 years of age.<\/p>\n On that same date, August 27, 1887, the Free Will Baptists were scheduled to hold a \u201cUnion Sabbath School Celebration\u201d on Philip Souder\u2019s property, described in an article in the Loudoun Telephone<\/em> as \u201copposite the Baptist Church, about 3 \u00bd miles Southwest of Lovettsville.\u201d\u00a0 The event was to involve the Sabbath Schools from Mount Sinai, as well as those of Hillsboro, Waterford, Lovettsville, and Mt. Pleasant.\u00a0 Orations were promised by speakers from Hillsdale College in Michigan (a Free Will Baptist School), Storer College, and others. The local Committee of Arrangements consisted of:\u00a0 J.W. Parker, Chas. Timbers, Thos. Timbers, Jas. Curtis, Austin Paris, and Rev. Lewis.<\/p>\n![\"Storer](\"http:\/\/www.lovettsvillehistoricalsociety.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/Storer-Brackett-w-students.jpg\")
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