Salem Church, Cole's Creek

Richard Curtis Jr., born in Virginia in 1756, was licensed to preach by South Carolina Baptists in 1778 and came to the Natchez country as a young man with his father's party. Spain ruled the region, and in 1795 its authorities objected to his preaching and to his officiating at his niece's wedding, so he went back to South Carolina and was ordained there in 1796. He returned in 1798 and, as moderator, helped organize Salem Baptist Church on Cole's Creek as a regular Baptist church, the first in Mississippi. He died in Amite County in 1811.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mount Locust — 3.7 mi
  A 1780s Natchez Trace inn and cotton farm at milepost 15.5, with an enslaved people's cemetery of 43 graves and a brick kiln behind the house.
• Emerald Mound — 6.7 mi
  The second-largest Mississippian ceremonial mound in the country, beside the Natchez Trace Parkway, built by ancestors of the Natchez and kept from climbing at the request of tribes.
• Alcorn State University and Oakland Memorial Chapel — 15 mi
  The 1871 Reconstruction college on the old Oakland College campus, first led by Hiram Revels, with the 1838 chapel built by Black craftsmen.
• Forks of the Road — 16 mi
  The 1832-1863 slave market a mile east of downtown Natchez, the second busiest in the Deep South, now a Natchez National Historical Park site with exhibit panels.

More markers nearby

• Charles Evers — 5.8 mi
• Thomas Hinds — 5.9 mi
• Old Greenville — 6.2 mi
• Church Hill — 7.2 mi