Sanders, Billington Mccarter

Sanders, Billington McCarter, A Baptist minister, was born in Columbia County, Ga., Dec. 2, 1789; graduated at the South Carolina College Dec. 4, 1809; and about 1811 or 1812 was rector of the Columbia County Academy. He was for one year a member of the State Legislature, and afterwards for several years one of the judges of the Superior Court. Finally he turned his attention to the ministry, and was ordained Jan. 5, 1825. After preaching for a time at Williams Creek and at Pine Grove, he became in 1826 pastor of the Union Church in Warren County. In Dec., 1832, he commenced, by the desire of the Georgia Baptist Convention, to lay the foundation of the Mercer Institute, afterwards the Mercer University, of which he was appointed the first president. He resigned this office in 1839, after having conducted the institution successfully through the six years of its academic minority and the first year of its collegiate career. He occupied highly honorable positions in divers societies. He was for several years clerk of the Georgia Association, and for nine years its moderator. For six years he was president of the Georgia Baptist Convention, and for a much longer time a member of its executive board. He was often a delegate to the General Triennial Convention, and, after the separation, was several times a delegate to the Southern Baptist Convention. He also edited for a year the Christian Index, and was an ardent supporter of temperance, foreign and domestic missions, Bible societies, and all kindred forms of Christian beneficence. He died March 12, 1854. See Sprague. Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, 6, 740.