Written by Joy Hilbun Mohr
My third great-grandfather was Stephen Newberry Hilbun. The majority of members of this Hilbun/Hilburn Facebook page are descended from him! The other members I believe are descended from cousins of Stephen’s father.

Stephen N. Hilbun was buried in the Big Creek Baptist Church Cemetery in Jones County, Mississippi. His tomb simply says, “Rev. S. Hilbun.” At the time of his death, in 1888, he was living with his son JohnWesley Hilbun who was the step-father of my great-granddad Stephen F. Hilbun.

According to the Bible record of his father, Frederick Hilbun, Stephen was born in December 1805. Stephen (SNH), was the last of eight children born to Frederick and Nancy Hilbun. Unfortunately, Nancy died in April 1810, when SNH was not yet five years of age. Frederick remarried and had at least seven more children and moved from Burke County, Georgia to Montgomery County, Alabama sometime in the 1820’s.

In 1828, Stephen married Priscilla Hannah in Montgomery County. They had twelve children, one of whom was my 2nd great-grandfather William. Priscilla died in 1846 and a few years later SNH married Sarah Smith. They had seven children and later settled in Pike County, Mississippi. Many descendants of this branch settled in southwest Mississippi and in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana.

From the 1850 Federal Census Record of Butler County, Alabama, we know that SNH was a blacksmith. He also must have felt a calling by God to preach as he was ordained by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1849.

Earlier in 1843, his older brother Joseph Hilbun gave land for a new church to be built in Butler County; this church was Bethel Methodist Church. Stephen and his older brothers, John, Joseph, and William Hilbun, were mentioned in that deed transfer as “trustees” of this church. The fact that these Hilbun men were part of the beginnings of this new church causes one to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ and His church were important in their lives.

The minutes of Bethel Methodist Church have largely been lost but in a remnant found from 1836, only two Hilbuns were listed as members- Henry Hilburn and his wife Keziah. It stated that they “removed “in 1836, suggesting that they moved elsewhere. We do know that Henry Hilbun was in Randolph County, Georgia in 1840.

SNH must have been a deep, contemplative man as just a few years after having been ordained by the Methodist Episcopal Church, he came under conviction that baptism of infants was in error. He became a Baptist and in 1851 was ordained in the Baptist church. Shortly before his ordination, he wrote an article, “My Reasons for becoming a Baptist”. This article was published in the Alabama Baptist State Paper in February of that year. Upon reading this article, it is obvious that my 3rd great-grandfather Stephen Newberry Hilbun was well educated!

His article has been transcribed by my father, Rev. Joel P. Hilbun, also a Baptist pastor.