Civil War anniversary: First Presbyterian Church of Dalton

The settlement of Cross Plains, only a Cherokee trading post in 1837, was at the intersection of the road from Spring Place and the road from New Echota that continued on into Tennessee.

In the 1840s, the village slowly grew, bringing in men to engineer and build the culverts, bridge abutments and finally the state railroad that ran from the Chattahoochee River to Dalton. Other businesses came to support those families, including blacksmiths, farmers, carpenters and retailers.

A map drawn in 1845 shows 16 homes and businesses. The population numbered around 300. The promise of the railroad enticed Capt. Edward White, representing a New England real estate syndicate, to purchase land in and around Cross Plains.

A visionary, White laid out the city with long, wide streets and city blocks that rivaled many cities. Fortunately, he provided land for churches, schools, a town hall and other public buildings, and named the town Dalton after his mother’s family. A small log or frame building facing south at the five-way intersection in Cross Plains was used for town meetings and worship services by Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists. This little church was a white frame building with a high boxed-in pulpit. The men and women were divided by a high center-board through the center of the church.

On June 22, 1847, the Western and Atlantic Railroad was complete with the first train arriving with much celebration. There was a rapid building boom of businesses and homes. Wagon trade from all points around grew tremendously to feed the railroad that could easily transport wheat, corn, grain and Ducktown’s copper. In less than a year, the town grew to 1,500 residents. On Dec. 29, 1847, the Georgia governor changed the town’s name to Dalton with city limits one mile in every direction from the brass marker located inside the Depot, now the restaurant of the same name.

In October 1847, a Presbyterian group led by Ainsworth E. Blunt purchased the existing church building and was the first to organize with 12 members. The Methodists and Baptists availed themselves of gifts of one acre each by paying $25 to the New England Land Co. and began to build separate churches and were organized in November and December respectively.

Blunt, one of the most respected men in town who was active in politics and commerce, was first and foremost concerned for his church. He was instrumental in the organization of the church and served as elder and the clerk of session for a number of years.

James McSpadden, R.W. Jones and W.K. Moore were the other beginning elders and the first minister was the Rev. John Jones.

Blunt had been a missionary to the Brainerd Mission before coming to Dalton and brought with him an old pewter communion service that had been used in New Hampshire, at Brainerd and finally at the founding of the First Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga. It is thought that the pewter service is still at the Chattanooga church. The church bell and first musical instrument, a melodian, were purchased soon after the organization.

Church session minutes, beginning in 1847 in Mr. Blunt’s handwriting, report the reception of new members, including an 1855 entry telling that Charity, a colored woman belonging to Rachael Hamilton, was received as a member. Most members were received on profession of faith or with a transfer of letter from churches in other locations throughout the country.

The minutes also tell stories of interesting situations with errant members and how the congregation dealt with them. Members were reported to have done such dastardly things as going to a dance or “ball” or “too great intimacy with another’s wife” or the “free use of ardent spirits and other improprieties.” In most cases, after proper counsel and advice, “for the good of the church and their own good,” the members were suspended from the communion of the church for a time, then returned with forgiveness.

In the early years of the war, Blunt and other members kept businesses afloat by selling goods to the Confederate cause. The church seemed to stay pretty stable. The April 1863 session minutes reported the largest congregation to date with white communicants numbering 72 and colored 26. The congregational collections for the previous year were $400 with $30 being designated for domestic and foreign missions. However, they acknowledged the surrounding war activity by reporting four deaths in 1862: one killed in war, one death from the effects of war and a “colored” man and his wife, no reason given. In 1862, the Medical Department of the Confederate Army of Tennessee set up hospitals in cities along the railroads that could be easily reached for receiving the sick and wounded. All public buildings in Dalton, including the Presbyterian Church, were converted into hospitals.

Blunt, as trustee of the church, received a payment of $15 per month from August through November, 1862, for the use of the church. The churches were returned to their congregations in 1863. Surveys of the damage done during army use were done and the Presbyterian Church damage was judged to be $102 which Blunt received as payment. Request was made again in 1863 for use of the three churches, but the three pastors declined until “its imperious necessity insists, which we must claim the right of judging.”

There must have been great conflict within the congregation about whether to stay and support the state in its cause or to flee for safety out of the path of the Northern Army. During 1863 and 1864 there was a flurry of requests for “dismission” to go to another town, usually further south, as the war drew nearer to Dalton. Several families went to Cuthbert. However, Blunt and his family went north to live with a son.

The church’s bell, cast in Troy, N.Y., weighing 1,000 pounds and costing $174.50, was known to be the only large bell within 100 miles. As war approached, women of the church buried the bell. They also hid the melodian, an instrument purchased in 1848, in the basement of an old house. The silver communion plates and pulpit Bible were placed under a pile of wood at the Blunt’s home on South Thornton Avenue.

During the war, one church member served as captain of the Dalton Guards, another as quartermaster in the 4th Georgia Cavalry, another as a surgeon in the army, and a 16-year-old drummer boy served in the battles of Murfreesboro and Chickamauga. Five young men from one family served in the Confederate Army — fortunately returning after the war to serve their church and community.

For two years after April 25, 1864, there are no minutes of the session. When Blunt returned to Dalton in 1865 along with other families, they were probably horrified at the conditions of the town. A Boston Journal war correspondent said about Dalton in 1865, “the most desolate look of any place I had ever seen. Several stores and more than a dozen houses are without doors or window glass, open, bearing marks of violence and of long desertion — not a living soul present in them. The stores are all open, empty, dirty, the shelves without a single article on them.”

As for the Presbyterian Church, Union troops tore out the floors, quartered their horses at the church, camped on the grounds, and finally took the timbers to construct hospitals and fortifications “behind the invaders’ lines.”

The small group must have reorganized quickly as the first minutes were written on March 11, 1866. Those first church records sadly tell of the death of A.E. Blunt, outstanding Daltonian, and ruling elder of the church and clerk of session since the church’s organization, almost 20 years earlier.

In 1866, the Rev. A. Warren Gaston came to Dalton, serving as pastor for 15 years. In the first years after the surrender, services were held in homes and in the Academy where the old City Park School now stands. With soldiers returning home and families returning to Dalton, the church began to grow slowly. Notes about new members refer to being unable to get letters of dismission from their former churches because of “great disorganization” with war effects.

In 1868, with only 25 members, a small red brick building was erected to replace the original frame church with most of the labor being furnished by church members. “The people had a mind to work and so builded they the walls.” For this new beginning, member Dr. Carter gave the silver baptismal bowl which is still used today. With no Sunday school rooms, each group met in a different part of the big room heated with two coal stoves and lighted by gas lamps. It must have been great solace for the church to reconvene after much sorrow and devastation during the war years.

The steeple was finally added in 1887 and the bell was replaced to “toll the church hour, fires, births, deaths and war.” Interestingly, much later, the Dalton church requested restitution of $2,000 from the Congress of the United States for “the materials taken and the destruction of the church during the War Between the States.” House Bill 12684 was issued on March 17, 1902. It was reported that the bill died in committee and no action was taken.

First Presbyterian Church still uses the original bell, the melodian, the pulpit Bible, the silver communion plates, pitcher and cup and the baptismal bowl. The church remained in that original location for 142 years with renovations to the church in 1913, 1954 and 1972. They moved from downtown to their current location on Tibbs Road in 1989.

This article is part of a series of stories about Dalton and life in Dalton during the Civil War. The stories run on Sunday and are provided by the Dalton-Whitfield Civil War 150th Anniversary Committee. To find out more about the committee go to www.dalton 150th.com. If you have material that you would like to contribute for a future article contact Robert Jenkins at 706-259-4626 or robert.jenkins@robertdjenkins.com.

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