22
December 2015 • SR
In the October 13, 2015, edition of the
Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette
, there is an article by Frank
Fellone about recent restoration efforts in Fouke,
Arkansas, to beautify and improve life in the
town. The article makes clear that the people
of Fouke have banded together to cooperate in
recent years to purchase and renovate historic
sites throughout the town under the auspices of a
group called Citizens for a Better Community. The
group was founded in 2006 by ten unpaid volun-
teers who took matters into their own hands and
mobilized an entire community behind their
efforts. The article highlights Fouke’s Seventh
Day Baptist roots, noting that the founder of the
town in 1890 was James Franklin Shaw, an SDB
preacher in the late 1800s and early 1900s, as
well as the distinguishing tenets of SDB life —
especially the seventh-day Sabbath. As part of the
restoration efforts in Fouke, a mural was commis-
sioned which prominently includes Shaw’s image.
The heritage of the town is being acknowledged
even as the residents make a better future for
themselves and their community.
As it turns out, the values which underpin this
new effort may not be a new phenomenon in
Fouke’s history. Fouke’s founder, J. F. Shaw, was
pastoring the Baptist church in Texarkana in
1883 when he encountered
The Sabbath Outlook
,
an SDB publication edited by A.H. Lewis. Upon
reading the publication, he became persuaded of
the truth of the Sabbath and the next year with-
drew from his church with 13 others to found
the Texarkana, AR, SDB church. After a short
time, however, it became clear that remaining in
Texarkana was not an option for the little band
of Sabbathkeepers as finding work became very
difficult. In response, Shaw and his congregation
moved to an area 16 miles south of Texarkana
and founded the town of Fouke.
Soon after the little colony was founded, trouble
struck as economic difficulty gripped the entire
region. Compounding the difficulty, SDB settlers
from elsewhere had arrived to the area just before
the economic stress arrived, raising tensions.
Shaw wrote to the
S bbath Recorder
in 1889
about the difficulty his group was facing, noting
that he had expended his own personal finances
to ensure the well-being of the fledgling church.
Around that same time, he reported extreme
exhaustion and ill health (including a bout of
paralysis) that nearly led to his death. Still, the
group managed to hang together.
A meetinghouse for the church and a school for
the education of the children were the first orders
of business for the new SDB town. Both were
achieved in short order, with the school taking the
name of Francis Bampfield, an early SDB leader in
England. However, despite the quality of the
teachers, the school ran into difficulties and
quickly closed. The second attempt at a school
began in 1891, under the leadership of Gideon H.
Fitz Randolph, called the SDB Fouke Missionary
School. Later changing its name to the Fouke
Academy, the school stayed in operation until
1927, when public schools were ready to shoulder
the burden of education in the community. The
legacy of the Fouke school is a proud one and in-
cludes the training of leaders for the Conference
and the nation.
Despite dealing with a seemingly constant stream
of complications and difficulties, including squab-
bles inside the congregation itself, the Fouke
group continued to work together to survive and
demonstrate the Gospel in their worship and
their lives. Ultimately, the Fouke church merged
with the current Texarkana church in the late
1980s. The legacy of the church lives on in the
work of Seventh Day Baptists. Today, if you drive
into Fouke on I-49, you will be greeted with a
sign that touts Fouke as a place of “Faith, Family
and Friends.” That’s a sentiment that could be
true of every Seventh Day Baptist church, and is
amply demonstrated through the Fouke church’s
story.
Historical Society
Rev. Nicholas J. Kersten
Director of Education and History
Faith, Family and Friends: The Foundations of Fouke
SR
1
Seed Sown:
A study of SDB Work in the Southwest
,
by Paul V. Beebe, published by the Southwestern
Association in 1972.
2
Sabbath Recorder
, volume 45, issue 15, page 227.
(April 1, 1889)
A sentiment that could be true of every Seventh Day Baptist church
