BAGBY, REV. HARRY ASHBY, D. D., of Greenwood, South
Carolina, was born in King and Queen county, Virginia, November 23, 1863,
the son of the Rev. George Franklin Bagby, a minister of the Baptist
church, who had been president of the Baptist general association of
Kentucky, and was noted for his sincerity and courage. His mother was Mary
Thomas Courtney, and he feels that her influence upon his moral and
spiritual life "has been blessed in every way." The ancestors of his
family came from Wales and Scotland, and settled in Virginia before the
Revolutionary war. His father and two of his uncles were distinguished
Baptist ministers in Virginia.
A sound and healthy boyhood was
passed by him first in the country, then in village life, and then in the
city. He says: "I often did work, during my vacations, in the wheat fields
of Kentucky, and I found it the finest physical and moral tonic." From his
boyhood he has been especially fond of reading history and biography; he
had excellent educational facilities, and he was graduated from Bethel
college, Kentucky, with the degree of M. A. in 1884, and from the Southern
Baptist Theological seminary at Louisville, Kentucky, with the seminary
diploma for the full course, in 1887. In 1901 Richmond college, Virginia,
conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.
On
October 25, 1887, he married Miss Elizabeth Woodruff Thompson, and the
active work of his life as a pastor began in that month, when he assumed
pastoral care of the churches Cynthiana and Union, in Harrison county,
Kentucky. In 1890 he became pastor of the Baptist church at Suffolk,
Virginia, and in 1893 he was called from that place to the pastorate of
the Calvary Baptist church, of Richmond, Virginia, where he remained until
1902.
Doctor Bagby's long pastorate in Richmond was eminently
successful, and brought him many marks of favor from his denomination. At
the time of leaving Virginia he was, and had been for several years,
moderator of the Dover association—the largest association of Baptists in
the State.
In the fall of 1902 Doctor Bagby entered upon the pastorate
of the First Baptist church in the city of Greenwood, South Carolina.
Here, in one year, one hundred and ninety-two persons united with the
church. In 1906 the Southern Baptist convention elected him vice-president
for the state of South Carolina of the foreign mission board of the
convention. In May, 1907, he was elected a trustee of the Southern Baptist
Theological seminary, of Louisville, Kentucky. His Greenwood pastorate is
probably, thus far, the most prosperous of his ministry.
Doctor
Bagby feels that his choice of a profession was determined not by his own
will, but "contrary to my own wishes in the matter, I was called of God
into the ministry." While he ranks as preeminent in his life the influence
of his early home, he places next to that the impulse to good which came
with his theological training; and he adds: "My association with men of
fine character is a university from which I never expect to graduate." In
political affiliations a Democrat, in social fraternity a Mason, the
father of two children, finding amusement in backgammon and golf, Doctor
Bagby has not only influenced for good the congregations to which he has
ministered, but has also made for himself many friends in the communities
where he has dwelt. His sound Americanism and his faith in education and
in popular government, are shown in his declared conviction that "the
graded school is the secret of success in
America."
