EV. WILLIAM N. BRAGG, who had received good training for his day, was a strong man, but he did not make good the trusts committed to him. As a young man he was looked to as one of much promise. In 1854, he conducted a protracted meeting at Wilmington, North Carolina, in which he was assisted by Rev. Jas. I. Hobby, and as a result of the meeting a church was organized. This same year (1854) he was present at O'Kelly's chapel in Wake county, as a licentiate. Both Conferences, the North Carolina and Virginia, and North Carolina, met as one. He was recommended for ordination, and the following presbytery was appointed: Elders T. J. Fowler, H. B. Hayes, and Solomon Apple. At the Conference at New Providence, in 1855, he was appointed on the committee on education with Revs. J. S. Swift and J. R. Holt.

      Rev. Wm. N. Bragg was a delegate from the North Carolina and Virginia Conference to the Southern Christian Convention at Union, in Alamance county, North Carolina, in 1856. He was at the Conference at Hanks' chapel in Chatham county, this year, and offered a resolution to have ministers' reports appear in the minutes. In 1857, at the Conference at Bethlehem in Alamance county, he presented a petition from Oak Level, a new church, for admission into Conference, and he was appointed on the committee on ordination and elected a delegate to the Southern Christian Convention. This Convention met at Cypress chapel in Nansemond county, Virginia, in 1858, and he served on the committee to prepare and report a plan for the organization of the Southern Home Missionary Society. He was also elected a member of the Board of Directors of the Southern Convention Book Concern. [299]

      In 1869, Liberty Hill in Franklin (Vance) county, organized by him, was received into the Conference at Union in Alamance county, North Carolina. He served on the committee on education and home missions, and was also on the committee to correspond with the Cape Fear Freewill Baptist Association on the subject of union. At the Conference at Pleasant Hill, Chatham county, in 1860, he was appointed on the committee on periodicals. He had become involved in a difficulty with his brethren at Raleigh, North Carolina, which was reported to this Conference. This seems to have been the beginning of his downfall, although he was exonerated. In 1862, at the Conference at Damascus, in Orange county, he served on the committee on memoirs, and on that of the condition of the country. His conduct was passed by the committee on the standing of the ministry. But at the Conference at Antioch in Chatham county, in 1864, he was not passed by the committee on the standing of the ministry. Charges were preferred against him, which the committee reported sustained. He was, therefore, "expelled from this Conference and his credentials demanded."

[LCM 299-300]