school occupied a large mansion that had been the home of one of the first families of the city. Before moving into this house Mrs. Kingsford "paid the sum of $80.00 to have it thoroughly scoured and cleansed from cellar to attic." Every morning at an early hour she was up and about, to see that the servants and teachers were all in their places. She went to market herself, taking with her several of the girls, that by actual experience they might learn how to lay in provisions for a large household.

In 1850 the Missionary Sewing Society of Grace Street Church, by a contribution of $176.15, made Mrs. Kingsford and two other ladies life members of the Virginia Baptist Foreign Mission Society.

It seems that Dr. Kingford's last years were spent in Washington City. Here, on Wednesday, July 27, 1859, he passed away in his seventy-first year. The next day, at the Tenth Street Church, Drs. Isaac Cole, S. P. Hill, and G. W. Samson, took part in the funeral services. The funeral procession was one of the largest ever seen up to that day in the city. Mrs. Kingsford survived her husband and lived to quite an advanced age.

J. C. CARPENTER

1834-1897

Rev. Emmett J. Mason, Jr., presented to the Augusta Association, in 1897, an obituary of Rev. J. C. Carpenter, whose funeral sermon he preached at the Natural Bridge Baptist Church, Virginia. All of the facts of this sketch are taken from this obituary. Brother Carpenter was born in Spottsylvania County, Virginia, October 12, 1834; he died August 10, 1897, from typhoid fever. He was converted at the age of eighteen and baptized into the fellowship of the County Line Church. He was educated at Greenville, Richmond College, and Washington and Lee University. During the War he served as chaplain to Federal prisoners in Castle Thunder and Libby Prison, Richmond. He was in the Bible and colportage work for thirty-five years. In 1875 he was ordained and served in Spottsylvania, Rockbridge, and Franklin Counties, Virginia, and in Greenbrier, Monroe, Summers, Fayette, and Mason Counties, West Virginia.

DAVID SHAVER

1820-1902

Abingdon, an attractive town in the fair Washington County, Virginia, was the birthplace of David Shaver. He first saw the light on November 22, 1820. His parents were Presbyterians, and at the early age of seven he made a profession of his faith in Christ. Since he was so young, he was not allowed to unite with the church. Not until he was sixteen did he take this step, and then he made the Methodist Protestant Church his choice. He decided to preach, and before he was twenty entered the itinerant ministry of the Virginia Conference. Under one of his sermons Miss L. C. Nowlin, of Lynchburg, was converted, and then, in 1843, became his wife. (Of this union ten children were born.) When convinced that he had entered the ministry without adequate equipment, he suspended his active labors and spent three years in "diligent preparation for pulpit service." As a child he had never heard a Baptist minister preach, but when, in his pastorate of the Methodist Protestant Church, in Lynchburg, he was called on to sprinkle a dying infant, he was led to study the whole matter of baptism. He found that his argument that the Baptists were wrong, because they were at one extreme (the Catholics being at the other), was false. He became a Baptist, being baptized in 1844. Upon the occasion of his baptism he preached, presenting his reasons for this step. This sermon led a young man of Episcopal tendencies to become a Baptist; this was C. C. Chaplin, afterwards well known as a Baptist minister. After his ordination Mr. Shaver became pastor of the Baptist Church right across the street from the flock (Methodist)

he gave up. After a brief season in Lynchburg he accepted, in October, 1846, the pastorate of the Grace Street Baptist Church, Richmond. In two years, by reason of trouble with his throat, he resigned at Grace Street to take up agency work for the Domestic Mission Board. In 1853 he came back into the active ministry, taking charge of the church at Hampton, Va. About the end of 1856 he gave up the work at Hampton and became editor of the Religious Herald. The front page of the Herald now bore this statement: "By Sands, Shaver & Co.," and the issue of March 17, 1859, this direction: "Office, corner of Main and 10th Sts., above Post-office." He continued with the Herald until its outfit was burned at the surrender of Richmond in 1865. After the paper was reëstablished by Jeter and Dickinson, he was Associate Editor until 1867, when he moved to Atlanta and became Editor of the Christian Index. After closing his work with the Index, in 1874, and after living for a season at Conyers, Ga., Dr. Shaver was in charge of the Third Church, in Augusta, and then, in 1878, became instructor in the Theological Seminary (of the Home Mission Society) for colored young men. This institution was located, first in Augusta, and then in Atlanta. When Dr. Shaver reached middle life his countenance wore "the pale cast of thought" and suggested the student. While all through life he seems to have had the handicap of frail health, nevertheless he lived to the good age of over four score years. His last days he spent in the home of his son in Augusta. Of this period of his life, Dr. Lansing Burrows, who was his pastor, says: "He was in his last days an invaluable adviser and friend of the brethren. His weekly

meeting with the pastors in Augusta was of untold blessing to them." He passed away at the home of his son January 13, 1902.

Thomas Corbin Braxton was born at "Mantua," King William County, the home of his parents, Carter Braxton and his wife, Sarah Moore. He was a grandson of Carter Braxton, "The Signer" (of the Declaration of Independence). He was descended in the third generation from Robert Carter ("King Carter") and Elizabeth Landon, from whose loins have sprung probably more names eminent in Virginia history than from any other couple. In early life he removed to Richmond County, and, having been ordained to the Baptist ministry, assumed the care of Farnham Church, which he joined by letter on March 8, 1828. His labors in the vicinity of this church and Roval Oak, five miles distant, were greatly blessed, and at the latter place a church was established in 1832, and named Jerusalem. He became pastor of this body, upon its organization, and served them nearly ten years. For one year he was pastor of Rappahannock Church, near the close of his ministry. He was one of the presbytery who ordained Rev. John Pullen, May 7, 1843. He was one of the founders of Baptist churches in the Northern Neck. A picture of Mr. Braxton indicates that he had dark blue eyes, dark brown hair, rather a thin nose, and a large mouth, and that while he was very good looking, his expression was very stern. He married Miss Maria Davis and his children were Thomas, John, and Lucy. The son John became prominent in political circle at the close of the Civil War, and served efficiently in the Legislature from Richmond and Lancaster Counties.

On December 29, 1841 he was elected pastor of the Fredericksburg (Va.) Church, where he served until January 2, 1843, when he declined the call again extended to him (those were the days of "annual" calls), expressing a desire to be a traveling missionary.