Springfield Baptist Church in Augusta, Georgia, traced its existence from Silver Bluff, South Carolina, in 1774-1775 to 1793 before becoming a Georgia institution, and it has been identified as the oldest black Baptist church in America and the oldest black church of any denomination. William Jefferson White wrote on March 23, 1890, that Old Springfield was the grand old mother of all churches, the only colored church in Georgia with one hundred years of undisputed existence, and the source from which more churches had sprung than from any other church in the state, including Mount Zion in South Carolina and Thankful, Ebenezer, Shiloh, Sharon, Cumming Grove, Central, and Harmony churches of Augusta and the surrounding country. He also wrote that its sons and daughters were scattered all over the country and that some of its best men and women had gone to Liberia.