[Membership and Finance Records of the Mt. Gilleon Baptist Church]

Tipton, Tennessee, 1942. Good. 12” x 8”. Quarter leather over buckram, ledger book. 195 handwritten pages + one piece of ephemera laid in. Book good: heavily worn with some losses of leather and buckram; internally very good.

This is a book of records for an African American church in Tennessee: Mt. Gilleon Baptist Church, which was located in Tipton. We have been unable to locate any secondary sources related to the church, making the membership rolls included here an invaluable genealogical resource: there are 54 pages showing lists of members covering the years 1918 to 1942. The book also holds 135 pages of financial records for a similar time frame. Many pages show member contributions with many giving amounts as small as twenty-five cents. Importantly, distributions are also shown. Much of the money went to pastor and janitor salaries, but careful examination would allow researchers to better understand some of the machinations of the church as we see money spent on painting, wine, and church repairs. We also learn from these records that the church was paying off a loan and sold excess lumber. There are also annual “reports” showing the number of members added or lost throughout the year as well as summations of expenses. A laid-in 1934 program for a 16th anniversary celebration of the Church's pastor, C.L. Watson provides useful data with respect to affiliated churches, titles of speeches and talks given. There are also four narrative reports of meetings, mostly having to do with discipline.