Margaret Parker, co-founder of Cheraw, MS

As recorded in "Baptist and Methodist Records of Florida Parishes of Louisiana, Volume 3, 1989" by Donna Burge Adams, both Joseph E. Pounds and Isham J. Pounds were licentiate ministers as early as 1850. According to this same reference, the New Jerusalem Church in Washington Parish, Louisiana, was admitted to the Association in 1854. The church , located near Covington, St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, had been organized under the labor of I. J. Pounds, with eleven original members. At the request of the New Jerusalem Baptist Church in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, the Antioch Church near Cheraw, Marion County, Mississippi, ordained Isom as a minister on December 10, 1854. "Baptist and Methodist Records of Florida Parishes of Louisiana, Volume 2" by Donna Burge Adams recorded minutes from The Eastern Louisiana Baptist Association which indicated that Bro. Jesse Crawford assisted at the ordination of Bro. I. J. Pounds to the Gospel Ministry in 1855 and according to "Marriage Records, Marion County, Mississippi", the credentials of "Isham" J. Pounds as a minister were vouched for by Joseph E. Pounds and Elliott W. Moore, Ministers of Gospel, recorded December 16, 1855. Isom served the Florida Parishes of Louisiana as a Baptist minister after 1855. Probably in 1857, Isom returned to Louisiana from Mississippi, purchased property formerly owned by Charlotte Richardson Pool, on which he lived until his death. The 1860 census for Fifth Ward, Washington Parish, Louisiana, enumerated him as a Farmer/Baptist Preacher. It valued his real estate at $300 and his personal estate at $326. He was then called as the pastor at Lee's Creek Baptist Church, Bogalusa, Washington Parish, Louisiana, which was officially established in 1872, after the congregation of the old Union Church split. He preached his first sermon in that capacity on Saturday, December 16, 1871. In the last twenty years of his life, he served many neighboring Baptist churches and helped establish many new churches in both Washington and St. Tammany Parishes.

I have seen Joseph's place of birth referenced as "indian territory Mississippi."