Tywappity takes title as first Missouri Baptist church
By John Marshall
Contributing Writer
JEFFERSON CITY – When discussing early Baptist history in Missouri, conversation quickly turns to Old Bethel, a Baptist church founded in 1806 near Jackson. Old Bethel is described as the first “permanent” Baptist church in Missouri. Rarely discussed is why the word “permanent” has to be used in its description. Bethel was the first permanent, but not the first.
Tywappity was the name of Missouri’s first Baptist church. It is sometimes said to have been the first non-Catholic church west of the Mississippi River, but this distinction may have to be given to a Lutheran congregation which began holding regular worship services in German about 1804 in the Cape Girardeau district along the Whitewater River.
In 1805 a Baptist preacher, David Green, a native of Virginia, arrived in southeast Missouri, the westernmost point of a preaching tour which had taken him through the Carolinas and Kentucky.
Near Ross Point, south of Cape Girardeau, he found along the Mississippi River a few Baptist families living in an area called Tywappity (Zewapeta) Bottom. Green immediately helped these people organize Tywappity Baptist Church. The eight or ten members of this congregation constituted the first Baptist church west of the Mississippi River.
Green soon returned to Kentucky, but his mind remained burdened with concern over the people living in the wilderness areas west of the Mississippi. Within a year, Green and his family moved to the Cape Girardeau area, but the fledgling Tywappity Church had ceased to function not long after its inception.
In 1809 Tywappity Baptist Church was reorganized. This second Tywappity Church would enjoy a long history and was a charter member of the Old Bethel Association, organized in 1816. Due to its three years of inactivity, new Tywappity was not considered a continuation of old Tywappity. Thus, the title “permanent” was bestowed on Old Bethel.
The reorganized Tywappity church was blessed with an outstanding pastor in its early years. James Phillip Edwards was a rarity among pioneer Baptist pastors. He had an education. Edwards had been an attorney in Kentucky. The young lawyer felt compelled to come preach to “people destitute of ministers.” Missouri provided him an excellent opportunity to fulfill this desire.
Associational minutes provide information regarding Tywappity. In 1824 its membership was 11. In 1827 Cypress Church was formed in Scott County, south of Cape County. Its membership consisted largely of people who had once been members of Tywappity. In 1831 the church was described as occupying the same ground where the first Tywappity Church had been organized. In 1840 Tywappity withdrew from the Association.
The diary of John Mason Peck, famous Baptist missionary to Missouri, contained several references to Tywappity Baptist Church. In November 1817, Peck was riding in a keel-boat, on the way to his assigned mission field, St. Louis. He traveled down the Ohio River, and then turned up the Mississippi.
On Sunday, Nov. 16, 1817, Peck went ashore about noon to a small settlement. He found two Baptist families who told him of a Baptist church about 15 miles to the north, where Edwards was the preacher.
On Monday, Nov. 17, 1817, Peck noted the flat lands below were now giving way to moderate hills, which gave “a pleasing variety to the scenery, while the rugged rocks projecting from the banks remind the traveler of dear New England. We are now just below Ross Point, where several Baptists reside.”
That night the boat docked a little above Ross Ferry. Peck called on Mr. Ross, a Baptist, and Edwards, a Baptist minister. Peck was surprised to learn seven churches had already formed an association in this part of Missouri territory.
Baptist historians have usually said Tywappity church was located in a swampy piece of land 10 or 12 miles south of Cape Girardeau, very close to the town of Commerce. This supposition has been bolstered by the fact a Ross Family Cemetery is located one and a half miles south of Commerce. However, William Ross, who was connected with Tywappity Church, is not buried there. The oldest grave marker in the cemetery is that of James Ross: born March 1791, died March 1860. Other family members of later generations are also buried there.
Another connection to Commerce is an interesting legend I learned in personal interviews with two longtime residents of Commerce. They said people in their town used to speak of a Ross lady who every Sunday for years made her way to an ancient family worship site. Though no one else ever went with her, she long maintained this unusual ritual. Stories like this certainly whet the appetite of a historian, but this one is at best only hearsay.
Our best hope for precisely locating Tywappity Church is found in the first comprehensive history of Scott County, which is located immediately south of Cape Girardeau. This official history, published in 1984, resulted from three years of research done by a committee led by a local historian, Edison Shrum.
Shrum placed the site of the church at what is now called Gray’s Point, not Commerce. This promontory point is situated on the Mississippi River, five miles south of Cape Girardeau and seven miles north of Commerce.
Shrum concluded all the lands south of Cape were called Tywappity Bottom. He also claimed abstract records reveal families listed as members of the Tywappity Church lived at Gray’s Point. Shrum felt the evidence presented in his book about the location of Tywappity Church was irrefutable.
Ross Point, now known as Gray’s Point, can be reached off I-55 at the Chaffee/Scott City exit (89). Drive east on Main through Scott City for two miles. Turn left at Madison Street, right at Missouri Boulevard, left at MO-N/MO-Y, and left at County Highway 307.
