About

The Missionary Baptist Convention, an organization separate from the Georgia Baptist Convention, formed in Cherokee, Georgia in 1855. This convention sought to focus their efforts on missionary work in North Georgia, and decided at a meeting in Dalton, Georgia in 1859 that they had enough support to establish their own newspaper. The convention elected Reverend Jesse M. Wood, a popular contributor to the Christian Index, to edit and publish the first issue of the Landmark Banner and Cherokee Baptist on October 5, 1859 in Rome, Georgia. J. S. Baker, who remained with the Banner as an associate until 1863, assisted Wood at the editorial helm. In June 1860, a group of prominent Baptists including Jesse M. Wood, H. C. Hornady, and John H. Rice established the Franklin Printing House in Atlanta, Georgia, and they moved the Banner to the new location. The Franklin Printing House quickly became a large bookbinding and job printing operation and boasted six large printing presses. Cornelius R. Hanleiter, a prolific newspaper publisher and well-known Atlanta figure, joined the printing firm in 1861. By 1862, the newspaper’s title shortened to the Banner and Baptist and served as Georgia’s second-largest Baptist newspaper behind the Christian Index. After the Franklin Printing House transferred ownership to J. J. Toon in July 1862, the Banner, although still published from the same location, had a single owner, H. C. Hornady. James Nathan Ells, former editor of the Southern Field and Fireside, joined Hornady in August 1862, and they co-owned the paper for about a year. By 1863, however, Ells was sole proprietor of the newspaper, now titled the Baptist Banner. The Banner moved, like so many other Atlanta newspapers during the later years of the Civil War, to Augusta in July 1864. The paper struggled to maintain a regular publishing cycle and briefly suspended operations in early 1865. Ells attempted to revive the paper in September 1865, but the paper permanently ceased publication by year’s end.