First Baptist Church, Second Street/
Raiford Blount [also, Rayford Blunt]
The First Baptist Church was organized by Rev. W. M. Moody in 1867. The first minister was Raiford Blount, who was born a slave in Thompsonville, Georgia, and was still enslaved when he arrived in Natchitoches in 1853. During Reconstruction, Blount served as both a local school board member and a state representative and state senator for the district comprising Natchitoches, Sabine, Desoto, and Red River parishes. During the election of 1878, a mob of White Democrats attempted to regain political control by arresting Blount and evicting him and his supporters from town. Although the mob leaders were arrested and tried for their actions, they were acquitted, “signaling the true end of Reconstruction in Louisiana” (Martin 2001:68).
Along with John Gideon Lewis, Martin Kiles, and Benjamin Perrow, Blount was a founder of the Baptist Association in Natchitoches Parish in 1870, an association that would be active and influential into the next century.
Built in 1872, the church building burned in 1905. After Blount’s death, the church split into two congregations: the First Baptist Church, Amulet and the First Baptist Church, North.
The original church was located, [near] Mason Salter’s furniture store…. It was on that spot of ground… the church mysteriously burned … so we had no place there. Then, property was bought where the church is now.
Reverend Blount was the first pastor of the church, and I understand that when the church was burning, they had to physically restrain him because he wanted to get the records. Now, the bell that’s on the ground of First Baptist Church, North was a bell that was used in a steeple…. That was the same bell that was used to call the slaves, because the church was organized … about a year after slaves were freed.
Reverend Raiford Blount, Historic Black Churches of Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana, p. 7