Providence Baptist Church was constituted on December 15, 1810. It began as a Primitive Baptist congregation and remained so for about twenty-five years. Within a week of its organization, members decided to build a log meeting house on Lot Eleven of the Fifteenth District in Randolph County, which soon became part of Jasper County. That first meeting house was a large log structure, forty feet long by sixty feet wide and twelve feet high, located near what is now Leverett’s Quarter, two miles south of Machen.
In 1829, the church appointed a committee to select a new site, and on September 24, 1831, the second building was dedicated. This sanctuary stood until 1906, when it was replaced by the present structure, which still incorporates foundation timbers and framing from the earlier building.
Several Revolutionary War soldiers were members of Providence, including Timothy Landrum, Jacob Mercer, and David Montgomery. Jacob Mercer is buried in the cemetery, his grave marked with a rock wall and a Revolutionary soldier’s marker. The cemetery also holds veterans of the War of 1812 and the Civil War, as well as Green Nathaniel George Washington Boone, a great-great-grandson of Daniel Boone.
The story of Providence Baptist is also the story of Shady Dale. This charming East Georgia village lies nine miles northeast of Monticello and was originally a Creek Indian settlement. Later it became a trading post and is today one of only two incorporated towns in Jasper County. By the early 19th century, the Seven Islands Road passed nearby, connecting Augusta to New Orleans and bringing traders and travelers through the community. Later, the arrival of the Macon and Northern Railroad in 1888 brought both opportunity and disruption, with tracks laid between the school and the church. Another proposed rail line was surveyed through Shady Dale in 1892, though it was never completed. Providence Baptist has been a constant presence through all these changes, standing for more than 200 years as a spiritual, cultural, and historical cornerstone of Jasper County.
This history is taken from notes provided by Miss Ida Lancaster, a long-time member of the church and resident of Shady Dale, who died in 1960.