05/31/2026
May 31 in Baptist History
On this day in 1969 Judy Lynn Price said “I do,” when asked if she wanted to marry David Oldfield.
Also on this day in 1784, John Bryce was born in Goochland County, Virginia. He was raised in the Episcopal denomination, but when he was twenty-one, under the preaching of Andrew Broadus, he was converted. Soon thereafter he was baptized and joined the small local Baptist church. Despite becoming an important lawyer (for awhile he was an assistant to Chief Justice John Marshall), he was also an important evangelist and pastor. His biography is quite incredible. He pastored churches in Fredericksburg and Alexandria, Virginia, before moving to Georgetown, Kentucky, and then to Crawfordsville, Indiana. He was raised a slave owner, but he freed his people and helped about forty of them to move to Liberia, Africa. He was influential in the organization of Columbian College in Washington, DC. In 1844 he was appointed surveyor of Shreveport, Louisiana, and while there he started the only Baptist church within 200 miles, but then he helped to start about twenty other churches in the region. In 1851 he returned to Kentucky to pastor the Baptist church in Henderson. Bro. Bryce was one of those men who took the gospel everywhere he went, and as America moved westward, he was there to help the settlers carry Christ with them.
Source: “This Day in Baptist History,” Thompson and Cummins
