John Mason Peck came to St Louis and baptized the first converts there and organized a church in 1818.) Clark, Rev. John.

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Admin Top contributor  ·   · Daily Baptist Encyclopedia (Notes on this one- his baptism was irregular however I will note that there was no Baptist in St Louis. (In fact Clark was the first Baptist or Protestant preacher west of the Mississippi) Isaac McCoy first made a preaching trip as far as St Louis in 1815 and called it “the devil’s empire.” John Mason Peck came to St Louis and baptized the first converts there and organized a church in 1818.) Clark, Rev. John.—This pioneer preacher was born in Scotland, Nov. 29, 1758. At seven he be- gan to study Latin and Greek. In 1778, he went to sea on a British ship, which he deserted at Charleston, 8S. C. He went to Georgia and taught school. He was converted in 1785, and became a Methodist preacher. He was ordained by Bishop Asbury in 1795. He visited Scotland, and found that his father and mother were dead. He returned to America, preached in Georgia, and taught school. In 1796 he walked from Georgia to Kentucky, and taught and preached in the Crab Orchard country. He exchanged the rod in school for firmness and love. He came to Missouri in 1798. He preached in St. Louis County when the Catholic foreign commander threatened him with imprisonment. He became a Baptist, and another Methodist, named Talbot, adopted the same opinions, and they immersed each other. The Lemmons, early Illinois ministers, studied under Clark, and acknowledged their obligations to him for their instruction in lan- guages and theology. He went in a canoe in 1808 and 1810 down the Mississippi to Baton Rouge, and preached and taught school, and walked back. He was easy of address, social, pious, intelligent, and useful. He wrote in a beautiful hand many family records in the Bible by request. In 1820 he visited the Boones in Lick County, and he was the first to go so far west. He belonged to the Coldwater Bap- tist church in St. Louis County. He died at Wil- liam Patterson’s, Oct. 11, 1833, at seventy-five years of age. He had performed great labor. Multitudes attended his funeral. The Lemmons, by his request, preached his funeral sermon. From the Baptist Encyclopedia by William Cathcart Photo and the following are from Findagrave Reverend Clark was the first Protestant minister to preach west of the Mississippi River. He traveled from Illinois to preach in the Patterson Settlement before the Lousiana Purchase at a time when only Catholicism was allowed in the Spanish Territory. He organized the first Methodist classes in Missouri in 1798 & established the first Methodist Society in Missouri in 1806. The Methodist Society became Baptist when Clark changed his faith. Note- I am unclear as to what happened to this church/ mission- I have found a few notes about Baptists meeting in homes prior to Peck’s organization of a church in 1818. This may be those believers.