Robert Boyte Crawford Howell was my Great-Great-Great-Great Uncle. No Baptist history would be complete without a commentary on his life.
Robert Boyte Crawford Howell
HOWELL, Robert Boyte Crawford, author, born in Wayne county, North Carolina, 10 March, 1801; died in Nashville, Tennessee, 5 April. 1868. He was graduated at Columbian college, Washington, D. C., in 1826. Soon afterward he was licensed to preach, and labored as a missionary under the Baptist general association of Virginia. On 27 January, 1827, he was ordained pastor of the Cumberland street Baptist church, Norfolk, Virginia, where he continued eight years, and in 1834 he removed to Nashville, Tennessee, where until 1850 he was pastor of the 1st Baptist church. He established and edited for some time a religious newspaper in Nashville, was moderator or president of all the religious organizations of the Baptists in the state, and for ten consecutive years was president of the Southern Baptist convention. In 1850-'7 he was pastor of the 2d Baptist church in Richmond, Virginia, but afterward returned to his former charge at Nashville, and remaining there till his death. At the beginning of the civil war he took a decided stand in favor of the south, and, when the city came into the possession of the National forces, was placed under military surveillance by Andrew Johnson, then governor of the state. Dr. Howell was commanding in his presence, eloquent as a preacher, and graceful and vigorous as a writer, he is the author of "Terms of Sacramental Communion" (Philadelphia, 1841); "Howell on the Deaconship" (1846); "The Way of Salvation" (Charleston, 1849); "The Evils of Infant Baptism" (1851); "The Cross" (1854); "The Covenant" (1856); "The Early Baptists of Virginia" (Philadelphia, 1876); and several smaller books. He left unpublished "A Memorial of the First Baptist Church of Nashville from 1820 to 1863," "The Christology of the Pentateuch," an enlargement of "The Covenants," and "The Family." Some of his works were republished in England.
Edited Appletons Encyclopedia, Copyright © 2001 VirtualologyTM
