Baptism at the River

I'm so proud of my babies!! *B* & *C* were baptized today!

The sermon was about baptism, since we were to have one following the service.

I can't remember exactly what his words were, but baptism was around long before Christianity. I never really thought about it before. Our Pastor said that baptism was used in all kinds of "groups" as a way to identify it's followers. Using present day as an example: If you wanted to be affiliated with a particular political party then you had to be baptized by them... to publicly show your allegiance.

Now I understand the conversation between John and Jesus much better!! John was at the Jordan River preaching and baptizing people. They then became John's followers. Well, when Jesus came down...

(Mt 3:14) ... John tried to stop Him, saying, "I need to be baptized by You, and yet You come to me?"

John couldn't understand. He should have been baptized by Jesus. He wanted to be a part of Jesus' group, not the other way around! I get it now!

Franklin, the State of...

Here we are, one week later, you must be dying to know about Franklin... either that or you're avoiding doing something else!

Here is what it would look like today:

If I understand correctly, all of what is now Tennessee used to be a part of the North Carolina Territory. Which makes sense if you look at a recent map. The only thing that divides TN and NC is the mountains. That is why the people on this side started to make their own government and sort of doing their own thing. They declared independence on August 23, 1784 and in 1785, the Franklin Legislature appointed John Sevier as it's governor. Here's a quote from TN History for Kids:

Sevier has the unusual distinction of being the first governor of two states. In 1784 the people living in what is now northeastern Tennessee voted to form a state called Franklin and elected Sevier its governor. For four years they acted as if the state existed, but the state of North Carolina was opposed to the idea of an independent state of Franklin. Largely because of this, Congress never approved the state of Franklin.

Now to the fun stuff! We took a "walking tour" of Greeneville, TN, which was the capitol from 1785-1788. Here is a replica of the Franklin Capitol Building.

Originally it was believed to stand at the corner of Main and Depot.

Once inside we read the John Sevier page from TN History for Kids.

We also saw Old Harmony Graveyard. Greeneville's earliest cemetery dates back to 1790.

I hope you've enjoyed today's history lesson!

Almost Wordless

(Previous Post explains the picture.)

Fire Next to Andrew Johnson Home

Here's the only pictures I could find of what it looked like.
It's the building in the background, not the one we're standing in.



The creek ran under the warehouse. I thought that was neat.

This is what happened to it a few weeks ago.



This was taken after most of the clean up was finished. They had the streets closed off for about 10 days.