As you journey through Free Will Baptist history, you find some intriguing stops along the way. Enjoy exploring the following locations of significance to the Free Will Baptist movement. Ayden, North Carolina, originally located on Lee St. in 1898, Ayden Seminary (also known as Free Will Baptist Theological Seminary) was the first attempt by North Carolina Free Will Baptists to establish an educational institution. Their efforts were blessed, judging by the number of students who signed up in 1905. Total enrollment was 133. Thomas E. Peden, a defector from the increasingly ecumenical northern Free Will Baptist ranks (who was himself from southern Ohio), headed the school until 1910. The college was renamed Eureka College (pictured below) with a printing agency known as The Free Will Baptist Press. Blakely, Georgia, from 1929, when Eureka College in Ayden, North Carolina closed, until 1941, when Free Will Baptist College first opened its doors, the denomination was without an educational institution. Even Tecumseh College, serving western Free Will Baptists, burned in 1927. Into that educational void stepped Zion Bible School. It was founded in 1935 by Thomas B. (“T.B.”) Mellette, native of Turbeville, South Carolina, and graduate of Duke University. Cairo, Illinois, This was … Continue reading Important Places in Free Will Baptist History