Nashville First Baptist Church

The residential character of the streets surrounding the main business district meant that many churches found downtown an important location for their congregations. Nashville’s First Baptist congregation organized on July 22, 1820 at the Davidson County Courthouse, and built a church building on Church Street. In the late 1820s, a faction of the congregation who favored a unified church over denominations, called Campbellites, assumed control of the church. The congregation split, and those who remained Baptist raised the funds to build a new church on Fifth Avenue in 1841.

First Baptist ministered to the city’s African American population as well as white Nashvillians, albeit in a segregated fashion. The church established the First Colored Baptist Mission in 1847, but services were held in a separate building. In 1853, Nelson Merry, an enslaved man, was ordained as pastor of the African American congregation, which had over five hundred members by 1860. In 1886, First Baptist completed a large Gothic style church on Broadway with a sanctuary and space for Sunday School classes. They established the Baptist Sunday School Board (now LifeWay Christian Publishing), and the Tennessee Baptist Children’s Home. The growing Baptist community in Nashville during the Gilded Age led to two additions in the 1920s and 1950s. In the late 1960s, the decision was made to tear down most of the 1886 building. Luckily, the Gothic tower you see here, was preserved. The congregation dedicated their current building on Easter Sunday in 1970, and First Baptist remains an active church. Although the original building no longer stands, the Gothic tower reminds us of the long history of the Baptist church in Nashville. 

Continue up Broadway. Cross Seventh Avenue South and walk towards Eighth. Your next stop is on the left at the historical marker for the Customs House.