Among the early Baptist ministers in South Carolina, one of the more influential and colorful was Edmund Botsford (1745-1819). He was nurtured in the faith by Oliver Hart, was a contemporary and fellow-laborer with Richard Furman in the Charleston Baptist Association, and a spiritual father to William Bullein Johnson, John M. Roberts, and others. He was a capable minister, an involved worker in the Charleston Association, a writer and a mentor to young ministers. Yet he is practically forgotten in South Carolina Baptist history.
This reprinting of The Memoirs of Elder Edmund Botsford by Particular Baptist Press will help introduce him to a new generation of Baptists. Perhaps it may even stimulate someone to do some research in the papers of Edmund Botsford that are located in the Special Collections Department of the James B. Duke Library at Furman University. The book was written and edited by Charles Mallary (1801-1864), a prominent Baptist minister of Georgia. Mallary's first wife was Susan Mary Evans, daughter of John and Sarah Botsford Evans of Georgetown, South Carolina, and grand-daughter of Edmund Botsford.
