Cahaba Valley Baptist Church

The Cahaba Valley Baptist Church (formerly Cahawba Valley Baptist Church and Carlton Hill Baptist Church) is a historic Baptist church located in the Carlton Hill community about 4 miles west of Brierfield on the banks of the Little Cahaba River in Bibb County. The pastor is Stanley Dawson.

The church was founded in 1817 by eight white and four black worshippers. Within two years a group of congregants was released to form an "arm" at Enon Baptist Church. The black members of the congregation were given land by the Carlton family to start a separate church after the Civil War. That church took the name Carlton Hill Baptist Church, which had sometimes been used for the older congregation.

The small wooden church is surrounded by the Cahaba Valley Baptist Church Cemetery, with gravestones dating to the 1840s. Concrete picnic tables used for church socials flank the pathways to the river banks, used for baptisms.

Indoor plumbing was added to the church in 1986, but the former outhouse still stands on the property. The congregation, which peaked in the 1970s with 50-plus worshippers, dwindled to as few as 8 members in early 2008 before Dawson, owner of Montevallo Auto Service began preaching there. He was ordained on November 2 and has seen attendance grow to about 25 people per week.

Pastors

• Moses Crowson (1817- )
• Stanley Dawson (2008- )

References

• Ellison, Rhoda C. (1999) "Early Churches", Chapter 6 of Bibb County, Alabama: The First Hundred Years, 1818-1918. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, pp. 60-70 ISBN 081730987X
• Garrison, Greg (December 16, 2008) "Bibb County church founded in 1813 keeps history alive." The Birmingham News