Damascus Baptist Church was organized on July 29, 1820, and constituted by Samuel Cartledge and Widner Hilman. Its first members were Jeremiah Blanchard, James Ramsey, Jeremiah Roberts, Sara Blanchard, Sara Reid, Dilly Swan, and Margaret Wilkins. James Ramsey was the church’s first clerk, and Jeremiah Blanchard was its first deacon, elected on Sept. 9, 1820. The first pastor, Samuel Cartledge, served from 1820 to 1839. He had earlier been the officer who arrested Rev. Daniel Marshall, founder of the Kiokee Church in 1772, for holding religious services in Augusta not in accord with the rites and ceremonies of the Church of England. Cartledge was said to have been so impressed by Mrs. Marshall’s exhortation at the time of her husband’s arrest that he was converted, baptized by Rev. Marshall, served as a deacon for several years, and was ordained in 1789, after which he preached for the rest of his long life. For a time after the War Between the States, the church did not meet, but under the leadership of Mrs. Jane Harden Embank, it was reactivated in 1875. The present building was constructed in 1901, and several additions have been made since that time.