John Sparkman, follow-up

This is a follow-up/update on John Sparkman, from former posts HERE and HERE.

John Calloway Sparkman was born in Jasper County, Georgia, October 27, 1830.[i] He was the son of William Moses Sparkman and Sarah Tate Anthony. When he was 18 years of age, he professed faith in Christ and was baptized by Elder John Dodd into the fellowship of the Bethsaida Baptist Church.[ii]

 

John Sparkman later united with the Flint River Baptist Church in Henry County, Georgia, before moving to Texas. In Henry County, on October 5, 1853, he married Martha M. Buckner Jarrell, the widow of Henry J. Jarrell. When they first came to Texas, the family settled in Pine Hill in late 1853 or 1854. John joined the Holly Springs Church there. He was licensed by Holly Springs in 1860 and ordained in 1861, with Elders William Guinn/Gwin, George Washington Rogers, and Merritt Matthew Melton forming the presbytery. He probably joined the Mt. Carmel Church when he became pastor there, then joined Zion Hill Baptist Church in 1870 (which he helped organize in 1868). He was respected by the Baptists in this area of East Texas, who elected him as moderator of the Mt. Zion Baptist Association from 1872-1881. “The Bible was his dictionary, geography, grammar, rhetoric and logic. He was a man of strong convictions, devotedly pious, and earnest and forceful as a speaker, carrying the masses with him in his plain, scriptural arguments, drawing his illustrations principally from the common field of nature, his leading theme being the doctrines of grace, while he was well posted in the distinctive principles of the denomination, and ably defended them when it became necessary.” 

John Sparkman pastored a number of East Texas churches, including Union (Nacogdoches County); Cool Springs, Holly Springs, Mt. Carmel, New Salem, Shiloh, Smyrna, Zion Hill (Rusk County). He died October 23, 1882. “He was afflicted with cancer of the face, about one year before his death. Amidst his great affliction, which confined him to his room almost continually, his faith was unshaken, and his principal conversation was upon the love of Christ and the fulness of His great atoning sacrifice.”

Mount Zion Baptist Association minutes, October 1883, page 9

The man who baptized John Sparkman was Elder John Sample Dodd. John S. Dodd was born August 3, 1809, in Union, South Carolina. He was the son of Edward Dodd and Jane Langston. He married Elizabeth Harriett “Betsy” Word in 1827, in Fayette County, Georgia.[iii] J. S. Dodd was converted in 1832, and was baptized (1832), licensed (1841), and ordained (1842) by Bethsaida Baptist Church. He pastored Bethsaida Baptist Church in Fayette County at least 1849-1853. (In fact, it appears that this is the same Bethsaida that he pastored for 50, though later listed as in Campbell County.) Additional churches pastored by J. S. Dodd include Antioch, Bethlehem, Flat Creek Baptist churches in Fayette County; Flint River Baptist Church in Henry County; Ramah, near Palmetto; Ebenezer, Fairburn, Coweta County and Bethlehem, Campbell County. He also served as moderator of the Flint River and Fairburn Baptist Associations. He died on February 2, 1892, in Clayton County, Georgia, and is buried at the Bethsaida Baptist Church Cemetery in Fulton County, Georgia. “John S. Dodd was one of the pioneer Baptist preachers of Georgia, and was for fifty consecutive years pastor of Bethsaida church, Campbell county, Georgia.”[iv] He was called to this church in 1843, and continued until shortly before his death. The location appears to be located near the Fulton-Campbell county line, and is the same location Bethsaida where Dodd is buried.[v]

John S. Dodd

From History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia, p. 193

When reading about John S. Dodd, it sounds as if John Sparkman imbibed deeply from his ministry, and followed in his footsteps. He was doubtless also influenced for good by the three men who ordained him, two of whom were from Tennessee (Guinn and Melton) and one from Georgia (Rogers). Though Sparkman left a long and lasting influence in East Texas through churches he organized and pastored, as well as the ministers he influenced, his ministry only covered a period of 22 years (from the time he was licensed to preach until he died), and he was only 51 years old at the time of his death. There is no known photo of John Sparkman.

---

[i] This year is based on Sparkman’s tombstone. J. B. Link gives 1831 as his year of birth. census
[ii] J. B. Link gives the name as Bethesda, but this probably rather should be Bethsaida. The late Robert G. Gardner, a Georgia Baptist Historical Society member and Senior Researcher in Baptist History at Mercer University, wrote to me: “The only Bethsaida church was in Fayette County, with J. S. Dodd as pastor in at least 1849-1853. His post office address was Fayetteville (1849-1850) and Fairburn (1852-1853).” This is the right names, as well as the right time and places with reference to John Sparkman.
[iii] The Dodds are enumerated in the Fayette County, Georgia census 1830-1870, and are found in the Campbell County census in 1880.
[iv] Baptist Biography, Volume II, Balus Joseph Winzer Graham, editor. Atlanta, GA: Index Printing Company, 1917, pp. 101.
[v] See https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=44063 Campbell County no longer exists, this part of it being taken into Fulton County. For more on Dodd, see also History of the Baptist Denomination in Georgia: with Biographical Compendium and Portrait Gallery of Baptist Ministers and other Georgia Baptists (pp. 193-194) and The Preaching Dodds of Old Campbell County.