The founder of this church would be proud.  His name was the Rev.
Stephen Hollingsworth, lived between cl7O7-1779, and was a devoted, if 
not too zealous, hardshell Baptist preacher.  His main thrust was to
try to convert Quakers, because his parents had both been of that re-
ligion.  Stephen was the founding pastor.  All this comes to us courte-
sy of Thomas B. Hollingsworth, of Carrboro, North Carolina, a subscrib-
er to HR, who sent us a copy of the brochure announcing the anniver-
sary program.  The church is located on Route 7, Box 177-R, Fayette-
ville, North Carolina, present pastor, Dr. Verlin Secrist.
    The brochure tells us that Rev. Stephen Ho11ingsworth was from 
Pennsylvania, a member of the Welsh Tract Meeting house and the Phila-
delphia Meeting House.  He was in Bladen Co., N.C. by 1737.  Without the 
help of Hollingsworth Register, we are happy to say that the above in-
formation is entirely correct.  Maybe we should correspond with Rev. 
Secrist!  Most of this was in our Sept 1969 issue, but doubtful if the 
folks at Fayetteville have seen a copy.  The second pastor was Rev. Wm. 
Cooper, who later removed to Mississippi Territory, and the third man 
in the pulpit at Cape Fear Baptist Church was Rev. William Thames.  
It was in Cumberland County by 1789 when dividing line was moved to the 
south.  About a hundred years after founding, membership was 448, and 
in the same year (1835) 95 were baptized.  It made for the largest mem-
bership in the Cape Fear Baptist Association.  Having been constituted 
in 1738, it must surely be one of the oldest still operating churches
in the South.  They still have their own Cape Fear Baptist Church Cem-
etery!
    Stephen is the "other Stephen Hollingsworth," to be carefully dis-
tinguished from his own cousin, "just plain Stephen" Hollingsworth,
who came to the Sampson County area about 1746. Rev. Stephen was the 
oldest child, or at least the oldest son, of John (Valentine) and Kath-
erine (Tyler) Hollingsworth, who both were born into the Friends' As-
sociation, but converted to the Welsh Baptist Church about 1710-11, 
when Stephen was a child, but probably old enough to understand what 
was happening in his parents' new church.  The Baptist meetings, in con-
trast with the Quakers', was like leaving a silent movie house and go-
ing, to a hard rock concert, if you will allow a crude commentary. By 
that time, the Quakers, who had been hell-raisers in the streets of 
all the big English cities during the reigns of Kings Charles II. and 
James II., had dropped the ball, and almost seem to have been destined 
for extinction.  They had gotten what they wanted from Government - tol-
erance, at least for a time.  The Baptists were threatening Hell-Fire 
to the unsaved, something a Quaker hardly could have done.  No wonder 
the Baptist services heated up Stephen's heart and sent him South on 
a never-ending mission of salvation.  At least, it was better than sit-
ting in Meeting and staring at the ceiling all day.  Probably nearly 
a11 of Rev Stephen Hollingsworth's descendants adhere to the Bantist 
faith to this day.  His most prominent son was Samuel Hollingsworth, a 
signer of the Cumberland Association, a pre-Declaration of Independen-
ce anti-British document.  Samuel is wrongly placed in both the 1884 
and 1925 Hollingsworth genealogies.  Katherine (Tyler) Hollingsworth 
married as her 2nd husband, a Mr. (?Robert) Edwards after John Hol-
lingsworth died in 1722, and went South with her children.  She died in 
1755.  Her will was printed incorrectly in the old Grimes Abstract of 
N.C. Wills, 1910, p. 110, leaving out Stephen's name!