Josiah Meredith Hart (1857-1957) grew up on the family farm in northwestern Clayton County and lived all but the last few years of his long life within a half mile of his birthplace. Self-taught, he was an ordained minister in the Southern Baptist church, although his sometimes unorthodox views occasionally brought him into conflict with his fellow Baptists. He was a member of Flat Rock Baptist Church, which his father helped found in the 1870s. Father and son are buried in the cemetery there, although the church itself and surrounding neighborhood were destroyed for construction of the fifth runway at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

He left a variety of drawings in pen and colored pencils, including a wonderful sketchbook filled with images of family, friends, and places that is posted here. The drawings presented on this page were mostly given to hisl granddaughter Melba and kindly given to me by her children after her death in 2013. The first posted below is entitled "A Workable Study of the Bible" and is dated March 1943. There are two versions of his "Little David" sermon which he preached as a young man in the mid-1880s, one of them dated "Nov [probably] 10, 1950." There is also a wonderful, undated series of drawings illustrating some of his thoughts on theology, particularly the difference between antimonians, armenians [sic], and atheists, a topic that roiled the Calvinists at one time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

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