Treasure Chest Thursday: Enveloping The Past To Secure The Future

There is no telling what you can come up with when you are looking for treasures. I was talking to Luckey from OurGeorgiaRoots and found her ancestor was Thomas Dorsey: The music man Thomas Dorsey!! I had been listening to some of his compositions for years.
I remembered that I had seen something in and old logbook that reminded me of Mr. Dorsey.

These worn envelopes found in an old church log book from Little Flock Baptist Church was an indication to me that the church knew good music, and invested in it to carry on their music ministry just before and after hearing good preaching. Thomas A Dorsey was the all time Father of Black Gospel music.


He wrote and sang "Take My Hand, Precious Lord" my all time favorite. Others from this list are "The Little Wooden Church On The Hill" and "Jesus Lives In Me".

You could get all these songs from 10 cents to 25 cents. Sheet music was mostly what was ordered in those backwoods churches. I can see them now playing that piano, shaking that tambourine and stomping their feet to the beat.

Now here is another set of worn envelopes found in that same old church log book. It says to me that that my grandparents and the church Community of Little Flock Baptist Church in Grimes County Texas thought about the future and put savings into a Retirement fund to have a better life.
I would also imagine that more than a few of my relatives knew the Boyd's in one fashion or another.

Boyd came to Navasota Texas right after emancipation from Mississippi. He eventually taught himself to read and write and found a church home that he eventually joined called Hopewell Baptist Church in 1869.
R.H. Boyd helped to organize the Texas Negro Baptist Convention. He also organized and served as pastor to several churches in Texas. He later moved to Tennessee where he founded the R.H. Boyd Publishing Company. After his death his son Henry took over the helm.