AFTON VILLA BAPTIST CHURCH near St. Francisville, La. Historic African-American Church in West Feliciana Still Making A Joyful Noise Unto The Lord by Anne Butler Afton Villa Baptist Church The story begins with the historic English Louisiana plantation called Afton Villa, on land granted by the controlling Spanish crown in the 1790’s to one John Crocker. Crocker is believed to have built a rustic eight-bedroom home on the extensive property just as the early Anglo-Saxon settlers arrived to wrest first indigo and then cotton plantations from the verdant woodlands and rolling hills of the Felicianas. By 1820 the property had been sold to Bartholomew Barrow, member of one of West Feliciana’s earliest pioneering families, associated with some of the area’s finest early homes like Highland, Greenwood, Rosebank and Rosedown. After Barrow’s son David inherited the property, he built the 40-room Afton Villa house to please the beautiful young Kentucky widow, Susan Woolfolk Rowan, he had courted and won. It was named, the story went, because of Barrow’s daughter Mary from his first marriage, whose singing of the song “Flow Gently, Sweet Afton” was so charming that the melody became a favorite of all the local young gallants. Construction began in 1849 and would last eight years, with the flamboyant French Gothic-Victorian villa modeled after a chateau the honeymooning couple had seen in Tours and sentimentally incorporating the rustic eight-room house originally built on the property when it was first settled. The Afton Villa house was an elaborate affair resplendent with intricate carvings, stained glass windows, Dresden china doorknobs, marble and plaster work of the highest quality, towers, turrets, galleries, balconies and cathedral windows. Even a moat, it was said, was contemplated but rejected due to the mosquito problem. An elaborate Gothic gateway flanked by a small reflecting pond opens onto terraced lawns and formal gardens laid out by a French landscape architect. The winding entrance drive, its ancient live oaks arched above and interspersed with famed Pride of Afton azaleas, is said to be one of the longest and is surely one of the loveliest in the South. In the 1960’s the Afton Villa house burned to the ground, but its ruins have been used adaptively to create a magnificent garden setting to complement the existing plantings in the formal parterres and rolling terraces, and it remains one of the area’s most popular seasonal tourist attractions. Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Catholic Church Just to the north of the plantation entrance is the Afton Villa Baptist Church, founded in 1871 on land donated by Susan Barrow of Afton Villa. When she had come from Kentucky to Afton Villa upon the occasion of her marriage to David Barrow, Susan brought with her a young female slave named Jenny Lind, no doubt for the celebrated 19th-century Swedish songstress who had so successfully toured the country in the early 1850s under the management of P. T. Barnum, performing to great acclaim across the United States. Raised by Mrs. Barrow, Jenny Lind was educated at home and considered almost one of the family. When she married George Tilly on New Year’s Day 1867, the ceremony was performed in the formal parlor at Afton Villa. As a wedding gift the couple was given 80 acres of land bordering Big Bayou Sara creek, and on this land the Tillys constructed a house in which they raised eight children. Both Jenny and George Tilly could read and write, but many of their contemporaries were not so fortunate. This was a concern to compassionate Susan Barrow, who felt deeply that strides had to be made toward formalized religious instruction and eduction of the black residents of the area. Before the Civil War, plantation owners of the Felicianas had attempted to provide for the spiritual life of their slaves primarily by involving them in their own systems of belief; some of the white churches had upstairs lofts for black communicants. With the Civil War, however, came a reluctance of blacks to be dominated by former masters in matters of religion, as well as a groundswell of popularity and interest in the newly formed black Baptist movement. A congregation of several hundred blacks had been meeting at Clover Hill Plantation near Afton, gathering twice a month in the woods in a hollow between two steep banks. On February 9, 1871, however, the congregation found a permanent and more desirable home. Mrs. Susan Barrow, with the support of her husband David, donated to the trustees of the Afton Villa Colored Baptist Church a small piece of land one-fourth of a mile from the Afton gate, for the purpose of erecting a church and school. The 60x108-foot lot, located on the Woodville Road, was initially valued at $50. The original Clover Hill congregation split, with half founding the Afton Villa Church on April 22, 1871, and the rest forming the Sage Hill Baptist Church not long afterward. The 600 or so members of Afton Villa Church erected a small frame building consisting of just a single room, where services were held. The first church was built by some of the founders, men skilled with a hammer and saw who could neither read nor write and who signed the legal documents pertaining to the church with an X. Within 20 years they would be constructing a larger church on the same site, a fine new building with a belfry and a fanlight over the entrance doorway. In 1970 this structure would be bricked and slightly enlarged, retaining the original wood flooring. Initially school was also conducted within the church structure, but eventually a separate school building arose nearby thanks to financial assistance from the Rosenwald Fund, a national foundation set up to further black educational goals, as well as from the black churches. Children too young to work in the fields came from all over the parish to attend classes at Afton Villa school. United Methodist Church The Afton Villa Church has had only ten pastors in its century-plus of service: Wallace Greenup, George Tilly, Major Hampton, George Hays, Major Smothers, Alfred Alexander, York Harris, Major Paynes and Sam Johnson who served the Lord there for nearly half a century until his recent retirement when he was replaced by Rev. Lionel Davis. Perhaps it was this stability of guidance, combined with the fact that many of the congregation members are descendants of the early founding families, that was instrumental in preserving so many of the traditional practices of worship at Afton Villa Church, for while material improvements have been effected over the years, the services and celebrations remain for the most part unchanged. Baptizing in late summer is preceded by revival and prayer meetings. “Some years,” according to longtime church member Violet Pate, “we have good baptizing, 30 to 40 head; other years nobody wants to get religion.” Candidates are now washed of their sins in a pool behind the church, but until recently the baptizings were held at nearby plantation ponds. As congregation members, family and friends watched from the banks, the white-clad candidates would be liberally immersed and cleansed of sin, followed by “right-hand fellowship,” when all shook hands, all accompanied by joyful music. Wake services are customarily held at the church the night before burial, with several hours of eulogies, remembrances and songs. In the old days the body of the deceased was transported to the church in a huge, black glass-windowed covered wagon pulled by mules, and wakes lasted throughout the night. “The old folks,” Violet Pate recalls, “always sat up all night with the dead; they said it was the last they could do for them, to wake them right.” Funeral services are marked by music, eulogies, obituaries and the reading of condolences and floral cards. If the deceased held church office, it is customary to “veil” his usual seat and leave it vacant for 30 days out of respect; after this time, a hymn or verse is dedicated to his memory and the black-draped board is removed from the seat. Programs for the funerals, printed by the surviving family, give favorite scriptural lessons, detail highlights of the deceased’s life and may even have a photograph. The burial then takes place in the peaceful oak-shaded cemetery in the churchyard, where some of the headstones are rustic concrete ones scratched with simple names and decoration. Each February the church anniversary is celebrated with the theme from Psalms: “We have heard with our ears and our forefathers have told us what work Thou didest in the days of old.” Violet Pate says the theme is apt. “The old-timers really have told us about the old days, how they used to walk to church with lanterns at night, and how they’d walk barefooted along the dirt roads and clean their feet with a rag before putting on their shoes to enter the church.” The church has replaced its handmade benches and antique lamps, but still preserves and treasures its clear-toned brass bell, glass-doored safe, and several silver communion goblets presented in 1915 by the owners of Afton Villa. Where other communities are only now reviving an interest in history and heritage, Afton Villa Baptist Church never lost its awareness of its beginnings or its appreciation for those who went before. Church homecomings attract former members from across the country, old-time footwashings mark the Easter season, and special services throughout the year recognize the contributions of the choir (founded in 1931), stewardesses, deacons, and ushers who keep order and seat newscomers during services, quieting children and calming those so moved by the spirit as to be vigorously “shouting.” Afton Villa also has several benevolent societies, stemming from the old days where congregation members often had no other resources in time of need besides the church, which was expected to provide not just spiritual but temporal comfort as well; the Afton Villa Benevolent Society dates from 1905 and the Willing Workers society dates from 1935, both still filling many needs by sitting with the sick, caring for the infirm, feeding the weak, helping to pay for medical care and providing burial insurance as well. Begun because of her mistress’ concern for a former slave’s religious instruction and education, the Afton Villa Baptist Church has outlasted both mistress and slave, as well as the school for black children which burned in the mid-forties, and the plantation house which burned in 1963. Afton Villa Church, just north of St. Francisville off US Highway 61, is still going strong, however, and members are now attempting to have the church listed on the National Register of Historic Places, remaining ever mindful of its place in history as well as in the present. Services are held at 11 a.m. the first and second Sundays of each month and at 9 a.m. on the fourth Sunday, with visitors always welcome. Grace Episcopal Church It is just one of a number of historic churches and cemeteries in the St. Francisville area. Beautiful Grace Episcopal Church, established in 1827 as the second oldest Episcopal congregation in the state, is a well-preserved brick structure reminiscent of the Gothic country churches which dot the English countryside, and its peaceful oak-shaded cemetery is filled with fine statuary and Victorian monuments of marble and stone. Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church sits on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River, completed in 1893 from plans drawn by Civil War hero General P.G.T. Beauregard. On Royal St. in the midst of St. Francisville's historic district is United Methodist Church, built in 1899 with splendid simplicity of style. These historic churches welcome visitors all the time, as do outlying architectural jewels like tiny St. John's Episcopal Church at Laurel Hill, dating from 1873. From LA 66 passersby can mourn the hauntingly beautiful St. Mary's Episcopal Church standing abandoned and crumbling in a cow pasture near Weyanoke; once a month services are held at St. John's, and once a year the congregation of Grace Church holds services amidst the ruins of St. Mary's. There are quite a few historic cemeteries in the St. Francisville area as well, besides those surrounding existing church structures. Locust Grove Cemetery, now a State Historic Site, is the final resting place of Sarah Knox Taylor Davis, first wife of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and daughter of U.S. President Zachary Taylor; she succumbed to yellow fever as a young bride while visiting relatives on Davis' sister's plantation. Hebrew Rest provides a shady burial spot for many members of the important 19th-century Jewish community of St. Francisville. Located on US Highway 61 on the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge, LA, and Natchez, MS, the St. Francisville area is a year-round tourist destination, with six historic plantations--Rosedown and Audubon (Oakley Plantation) State Historic Sites, Butler Greenwood, the Myrtles, the Cottage and Greenwood--open for daily tours, Catalpa Plantation open by reservation and magnificent Afton Villa Gardens open seasonally. Reasonably priced meals are available in a nice array of restaurants in St. Francisville, eclectic shops fill restored 19th-century structures throughout the historic downtown area, and some of the state's best Bed and Breakfasts offer overnight accommodations ranging from golf clubs and lakeside resorts to historic townhouses and country plantations; a modern motel has facilities to accommodate busloads. The scenic unspoiled Tunica Hills region surrounding St. Francisville offers excellent biking, hiking, fishing, birding, horseback riding and other recreational activities. For online coverage of tourist facilities and attractions in the St. Francisville area, see www.stfrancisville.us, www.stfrancisville.net, or www.stfrancisvilleovernight.com; or telephone (225) 635-3873 or 635-6330.  For high resolution photographs for media use, please email PHOTOS ; by Patrick Walsh.