215 – August 03 – This Day in Baptist History Past

First Missionaries from North Carolina

1846 – Matthew and Eliza Yates were appointed as missionaries to China by the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.  They were the first missionaries to go to the foreign field from North Carolina.  Yates died on March 17, 1888 and was buried in China after a blessed and fruitful ministry.  (Walter Sinclair Stewart, Early Baptist Missionaries and Pioneers – Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1926. 2:176)

Prepared by Dr. Greg Dixon