EV. URIAH RAWLS was a member of the Eastern Virginia Conference. He united with the Church a few years later than Revs. Mills Barrett and Joshua Livesay. He was for a long time the preacher at Holy Neck.

      In 1828, Rev. Uriah Rawls attended the Union Meeting and Conference at Union meeting house in Southampton county, Virginia, on the 5th of May. He was chosen Speaker or President, and on motion it was agreed that he "be the pastor of the Cypress chapel." In a letter of his dated, June 5th, 1835, he says, "When I first began to exercise my little gift in the church at Holy Neck, there were but eight members including myself. I have striven and prayed, and the Lord has blessed my labors here and elsewhere. The church has rising of one hundred members who are well united in the good cause." He was a contemporary laborer with Revs. Joshua Livesay and Mills Barrett. Elder Rawls attended the North Carolina Conference at Moore Union in Moore county, as a messenger from the Eastern Virginia Conference, in October, 1885. On motion of Elder Rawls, it was "agreed to open and keep up a correspondence with said Conference either by messengers or letter." Elders Hayes and Rollins were appointed as messengers from the North Carolina Conference to the next Virginia Conference to be held the following May, 1836. This year Elder Rawls remitted $10.00 to the "Christian Palladium."

      He attended the Conference at Cypress chapel, in 1837, as a representative from Holy Neck, and was appointed on the committee of correspondence or fraternal messenger to the North Carolina Conference. In 1838, he represented Holy Neck in the Conference at Barrett's, [103] in Southampton county. At this Conference a backward step was taken by the majority or anti-constitution. party, of which he was one. In 1839, he was present at the Conference at Providence chapel In Norfolk county; he reported a revival at Holy Neck, at which "eighteen were received into fellowship." In 1841, he was at the Quarterly meeting at Holy Neck with Revs. Joshua Livesay and William A. Jones. Though greatly afflicted he was also at Holy Neck in 1842, where he formed the acquaintance of Rev. W. R. Stowe, on 9th and 16th of March. On Saturday, August 20th, Rev. Mr. Stowe who had taken the place of Elder Rawls, the latter now being confined to his home by disease, commenced a meeting at Holy Neck.

      Elder Rawls reported at the Conference at Holy Neck, in 1848, and was greatly afflicted at this time. The committee on the standing of the ministry reported him in "good standing." At the meeting on August 16,1845, he was able to be at Holy Neck for the first time in three years, and on September 20th he preached. In 1846, the Conference met the first of August at Union, in Southampton county, and he says that during the meeting nineteen were hopefully converted. The custom was not only to transact the business of the churches, but to hold a general meeting at these appointments. In 1849, he was chosen President of the Conference at Bethlehem. Here the absorbing item of interest was the subject of the itinerancy.

      He was also patriotic. Near Holy Neck, in 1850, a large concourse of people had assembled to celebrate the 4th of July, and Elder Rawls opened the exercises with a "fervent prayer for God's blessings to rest upon the nation." In 1852, he was living near South Quay, in Nansemond county, Virginia; and represented himself by letter in the Conference at Providence in Norfolk county. [104]

      The following memorial record was made at Holy Neck in 1865: "Elder Uriah Rawls came into the Church a few years later in its history [than Elder Mills Barrett], but filled his place with equal honor and faithfulness, shared in the joys and sorrows of the denomination, and remained true, through much physical suffering, to the last. He was translated to his rest above ere the storm of [the Civil] War had fairly set in, and thereby, in the providence of his Master escaped many of its sorrows."

[LCM 103-105]