Burgess Miles
In the early days after the War Between the States religion became a source of comfort and peace for a generation which had grown tired of war and destruction. Local Baptist evangelists rapidly spread the Gospel throughout the region. James Lazarus Bryars was an early Baptist missionary who walked from community to community founding churches and preaching at turpentine stills and lumber camps. Among the many churches Bryars helped to found was Sardis Baptist Church in July 1865.
Burgess Miles donated land for the church and originally the church met in a log cabin that was near the Evansville town site. The area around the church played host to two schools, one of which was called the Wawbeek-Edwards School (the location is along present day-Old Atmore Road). During this era the saw mill town of Evansville boasted a hotel along Sam Jones Road. After the demise of Evansville, the area was called Wawbeek.
Several stores including a hardware store and the Miles Horn Store served the community. Burgess Miles, Mr. Walker, and Holder Evans (the founder of Evansville) all had sawmills in the area and Mr. Walker's foundry was a profitable addition to his mill. The Evans and Walker mills eventually burned and were not rebuilt. Saw dust piles from the Evansville and Miles mills have remained in the woods until modern times.
Religion played a major role in the lives of residents. The original Sardis Baptist Church had a baptistery that was a concrete pool which had a pipe for running branch water into the pool. At other times, members were baptized in Cowpen Creek where deacons would dig out a spot deep enough in the shallow creek to baptize the newly saved.
Among the early pastors of Sardis Baptist Church were James L. Bryars, Henry Greenberry Ray (who was a Confederate veteran) and A.C. Shell who led the church for 22 years, part of which was during the Great Depression when the church met only one Sunday a month. Levi Thomas was an early deacon in the church and his son John Noye Godwin built a large pre-fabricated home in the 1890s which was brought in by rail via the railroad.
Tragedy struck the church when, in late April 1910 a fire ravaged the building. According to The Pine Belt News of Brewton, from Thursday April 28, 1910; the fire was a total loss:
"Rev. I.L. Taylor returned from Wawbeek Monday, where he went to fill his monthly appointment. Saturday night the Baptist church (Sardis) was destroyed by fire. It was one of the neatest and best constructed houses of worship in the county and was the pride of the neighborhood in which it was located. Its destruction is regretted by everyone. Some seem to think that the fire was of incendiary origin. There was no insurance. The loss is estimated at $500.
People living three miles away saw the reflection of the light from the burning building about eleven o'clock Saturday night.
Those living near the church knew nothing of the conflagration until Sunday morning. Mr. Burgess Miles, one of the most progressive farmer citizens of the community, will take the initiative in having the church rebuilt just as soon as possible."
R.W. Brooks (please see last week's article) led the church at one time. As mentioned last week, Brooks was raised in the saw mill town of Evansville, afterwards he moved to Bluff Springs where he served as ticket agent, justice of the peace and store clerk. Later he moved to Mississippi and worked in the newspaper business. He returned to the Escambia County area and became a newspaper editor for the Atmore Spectrum and the Flomaton Journal. Brooks is personally responsible for saving much of the local history of this area through the historical columns he wrote during his years with the newspapers. At the age of 83 he founded Brooks Chapel in Atmore which eventually grew into Brooks Memorial Baptist Church.
Many early families in the area attended Sardis Baptist Church and the church served not only as the religious center of the community but also as a place for church socials. The Moye family was among the families that settled in the area and attended Sardis Baptist Church.
Legend says that the family originated in the area when two brothers in route to settlement in Texas (probably in the 1830s) came through the area. The mother became sick and one brother stayed on with the mother while the other moved on to Texas.
The Moyes are credited with naming Cowpen Creek. Some say they named the creek for the part of South Carolina from which they originated, and others say that one of the early Moyes had a catch pen upon the creek where he and his neighbors would catch the cattle that roamed the local woods and run them through a sort of "dip" to remove ticks.
The woods around Cowpen Creek proved to be a source of legend and intrigue. Local legend tells of a panther that traveled the creek bottoms twice a year. The big cat came through once while heading south in the fall and again when heading north in the spring. Frightened farm animals would huddle and crowd into the barns as the panther traveled the woods. Local children would become horrified by the screams of the panther in the deep darkness of the pine and hardwood forests late at night.
An even more chilling story is that the panther slept in Bowman Cemetery on his travels through the area. Supposedly he slept upon a raised grave and if a car or truck turned around in the cemetery's drive way, the bright eyes of the big cat would light up in the darkness of the cemetery; a site certain to send a cork-screw sensation of fear up the back of even the most stolid soul.
Today, many of the original families who were members of Sardis Baptist Church continue to live in the area and many remain members of the church. The Sardis Church/Wawbeek area remains a place where the past and present are blended together in the names of the families, geography, and stories of the area.
Canoe: History of a Southern Town are available for $20 at the Wawbeek Store. Coming in 2018: Shadows and Dust III: Reader Favorites.
