Rev. James Brinson

1761-1831 · New Bern NC

Born 1761, near New Bern, North Carolina

Died 1831

Children include Mary

James Brinson was born in 1761 near New Bern, in Craven County, North Carolina. His parents are given as Rev. James Brinson and Keziah Linton. In 1783 he married a North Carolina girl of the Purser family, named Patience in most accounts and Elizabeth in one church history.

He became a Baptist preacher. A church history of north Louisiana says he had been publicly whipped and imprisoned in North Carolina for preaching, and that he helped found churches there before he went west.

By the early 1800s the family was in Middle Tennessee. Their daughter Mary Ann, called Polly, married Christopher Koonce in Wilson County in January 1806. Other children were Enoch, Jesse, Josiah, Elizabeth, who married a Whitson, Hollen, who married Arthur McFarland, Sarah Ann and Laurett, who both married Nelsons, Philip, Keziah and Mitchell.

In 1820 he took the family to Louisiana. William E. Paxton, the historian of Louisiana Baptists, wrote in 1888 that James Brinson, "an ordained minister from Tennessee, settled not far from the present town of Vienna, at a place called Upper Pine Hills." With him came his son-in-law Arthur McFarland, Christopher Koonce and James Whitson with their wives, and a brother-in-law, A. P. Nelson. In 1821 most of them were constituted as the Pine Hills Church, "made up at first chiefly of members of his own family." Paxton believed he was the first Baptist preacher to work in the country between the Ouachita River and Bayou Dorcheat.

With Elder John Impson he carried his preaching west into what was then Natchitoches Parish. In 1823 they gathered a small church near the site of Minden, called Black Lake. In 1824 they gathered another about four miles east of Mount Lebanon, called Providence, "where some of Brinson's company had settled." His daughter Polly and her husband were among its first members. He was moderator of the Louisiana Baptist Association in 1822 and 1827.

He died on 5 September 1831, aged about 70, in what is now Claiborne or Bienville Parish, and the Louisiana Association took notice of his death at its next meeting. Where he is buried is not known. Patience lived until 1850.

Children

Mary Ann Brinson 1785-1825

Sources

W. E. Paxton, A History of the Baptists of Louisiana, from the Earliest Times to the Present (St. Louis: C. R. Barns, 1888), pp. 153, 238-239, 515, 524; archive.org identifier cu31924029452038.

William E. Paxton, A History of the Baptists of Louisiana (St. Louis, 1888), pages 153, 238 and 239, 515 and 524 (archive.org cu31924029452038); entry "Brinson, James, clergyman" by P. C. C. in the Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, as transcribed on Find a Grave memorial 14276690, with family links to memorials 14523996 and 116725476; history of the First Baptist Church of Homer, Louisiana, "The Years Prior to 1845" (ahgp.org, Claiborne Parish)

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Cite: Heirology, "Rev. James Brinson (1761-1831)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/rev-james-brinson-1761-1831-232f78.