The records are arranged as ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS, CONGREGATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS, and CHURCH HISTORY.
The ADMINISTRATIVE RECORDS include clerks' minutes and correspondence. In 1901 the First Baptist Church burned to the ground and most records dating to that early period are thought to have been destroyed. In the collection from the church's early period are three books of minutes, all of which have a somewhat uncertain provenance and function. Volume 1 contains minutes of covenant meetings that were held in members' homes from 1847 through 1851. Responsibility for this book was taken over by Lyman Draper, the congregational clerk, who apparently recopied into the volume some correspondence and notes on events that took place in 1852. It is possible that this volume survived the fire because it had been turned over to the Historical Society by Draper before that time. Volume 2 appears to have begun in 1853 as a record created by Willett S. Main, the church clerk. Main may have kept the volume in his home. If so, this explains how it escaped the fire. The volume contains documentation dating from after the fire added by other clerks. The final volume was maintained by another clerk, Louis C. Haley. This volume does not appear to be, however, the Haley volume referred to in the centennial church history as the only record known to have survived the fire. This final volume contains a copy of the 1894 church manual which supplements a run of church manuals held by the Historical Society Library. (In addition, the library holds several church publications, That Magazine and Our Church Record, which predate the fire.)
Also filed here is some correspondence, 1849-1864, collected by Lyman Draper in his capacity as church clerk and deacon that deals with pastoral resignations and replacements, requests for financial support from the Home Missions Society, sale of pews in the new church building, disagreements between church members requiring congregational action, and several requests to Draper regarding Baptist publications. Also included are a report of a Dane County Committee on starting a denominational newspaper and several annual reports to the Dane Baptist Association.
Records of CONGREGATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS include incomplete minutes of the Gillin adult class; minutes of the Women's Missionary Society; and an account book documenting the Brotherhood Athletic Club, the Christian Templars, and several other groups.
CHURCH HISTORY is a chronologically-arranged subject file documenting various highlights in the congregation's history. Notable is the scrapbook apparently compiled when Rev. Moseley resigned in 1944. The photographs in the scrapbook are of interest for their allusion to the congregation's focus on racial and international understanding. About the 1923 diamond anniversary the collection contains the text of a slide lecture presented at that time and several miscellaneous transparencies from that lecture. A substantial number of these transparencies were reused in a longer lecture that was presented in 1947 for the congregation's centennial. The 1947 transparencies (only 1-57 are present, however) include interior and exterior views of the church buildings, portraits of its ministers, and pictures of the activities of Baptist students at the University while Charles Galpin served as university pastor. Also about the centennial is a scrapbook containing additional photographs, a congregational history, the text of the anniversary slide lecture, and some correspondence with former members of the church. Other photographs and transparencies in the collection document various organizations and activities. Also filed here is a minute book of the Sun Prairie Baptist Church, 1900-1907, whose members transferred to the Madison congregation.
