Chronology

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1. Reconstruction and the New South · 1866–1899

2. July 3, 1892
   Construction or physical change · Mount Adar Baptist Church, northern Orange County Mount Adar Baptist Church dedicates its first building

   Three years after organizing in a schoolhouse, Mount Adar dedicated a church built on land given by Fannie Hicks Christopher (Mrs. James Christopher), paid for with $520.99 in cash and $214.35 in work and materials. Dr. C. Davidson of the State Mission Board preached the dedication sermon.

3. Early twentieth century · 1900–1944

4. October 13-14, 1925
   Appointment, election or service · Mount Adar Baptist Church, northern Orange County Mount Adar hosts the Mount Zion Baptist Association for the first time

   The association's annual session met at Mount Adar for the first time and drew a large crowd. All four of the church's delegates that year were women, the first women it had sent since 1911.

5. 1928
   Life event · Mount Adar Baptist Church, northern Orange County Mattie Compton Vernon becomes the first burial in Mount Adar's cemetery

   Mattie Compton Vernon, a charter member who had married the Rev. John H. Vernon in 1895, died in 1928 and was the first person buried in the Mount Adar Baptist Church cemetery.

6. Civil rights era · 1945–1975

7. first Sunday in May 1948
   Construction or physical change · Mount Adar Baptist Church, northern Orange County Mount Adar holds its first service in a new auditorium

   Plans to remodel, begun in October 1941, stalled when the builders in the area went to work at Camp Butner, and the program revived in 1946. During construction Mount Adar met for about eight months in Carr Methodist Church on alternate Sundays, then opened its new auditorium with two Sunday school rooms in May 1948.

8. June 1952
   Appointment, election or service · Mount Adar Baptist Church, northern Orange County Mount Adar ordains Robert Frazier, the first of its members to enter the ministry

   On the first Sunday in June 1952 the church ordained Robert Frazier, son of A. R. Frazier, the first of its own members to be ordained. He became its only foreign missionary, serving with his family among the Asmat people of Indonesia (formerly Dutch New Guinea).

9. June 1954
   Construction or physical change · Mount Adar Baptist Church, northern Orange County Mount Adar dedicates its completed church

   With money raised under pastor Jack Parham, the unfinished part of the building was completed for about $20,000 and the church dedicated. Former pastor Henry Morgan preached the dedication sermon.

10. Recent decades · 1976–2026

11. February 1982
    Appointment, election or service · Orange County Prison Unit, Hillsborough A Mount Adar member begins the Baptist association's chaplaincy at the Orange County prison unit

    The Mount Zion Baptist Association, with help from the Baptist State Convention, began a part-time chaplaincy for inmates of the prison units at Hillsborough and Graham. Jack Gross of Mount Adar served as interim chaplain from February until David V. Morton took over on June 1.

12. April 5, 1987
    Appointment, election or service · Mount Adar Baptist Church, northern Orange County Mount Adar ordains Jackie Hawkins Allen, the first woman it ordained

    The church ordained Jackie Hawkins Allen, daughter of John Oscar and Lois Hawkins and a Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary graduate in pastoral care, to the Christian ministry. She was the first woman ordained by Mount Adar and its second member ordained, after Robert Frazier in 1952.

13. July 1988
    Founding or opening · Mount Adar Baptist Church, northern Orange County Mount Adar opens its building to Spanish-language services for migrant farmworkers

    With many migrant laborers in the area each summer and fall, the church let the Rev. Bain Daniels, a former missionary to South America, hold services in Spanish there every Sunday afternoon.

14. October 23, 1988
    Appointment, election or service · Mount Adar Baptist Church, northern Orange County Sandra Hawkins Briggs is ordained Mount Adar's first woman deacon

    Elected a deacon in September 1988, after a committee revised the church's rules for choosing deacons, Sandra Hawkins Briggs was ordained in October as the first woman to hold the office at Mount Adar.

15. March 12, 1989
    Naming or commemoration · Mount Adar Baptist Church, northern Orange County Mount Adar Baptist Church celebrates its centennial

    On the Sunday after the hundredth anniversary of its organization, the church presented a pageant by Debra Oakley Ward reenacting the 1889 founding at the morning service. Hallie Whitted McDade, daughter of charter member W. H. Whitted, was the guest of honor, and the centennial history was finished the next month.

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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 4, 2026.