In 1837 he returned to Tennessee, locating at a ferry and Indian trading place known as "Ross's Landing," now Chattanooga. Here he went into the mercantile business, had a partner, and was going to "get rich." The Indians and white men around, who had more "credit" than cash or honesty, got the "goods," while the merchant got the "experience." Young Hillsman soon learned in the school of experience that the Lord "had not called him to be a merchant." I remember reading an interesting editorial in The Chattanooga Times, some years ago, on "Dr. M. Hillsman, a Pioneer of Ross's Landing and Founder of the First Baptist Church of Chattanooga. 1839." There appeared also in the Baptist and Reflector, in 1880, a series of articles by Dr. Hillsman, giving many interesting reminiscences of his early ministerial life. On Baptist beginnings in Chattanooga I quote him as follows: "But few persons now, living know anything of the origin of the First Baptist Church organization in Chattanooga, which was the germ from which the present First Church has grown. In 1838, while the Cherokee Indians were still residing in the country, I became a resident of Chattanooga, then known as Ross's Landing. The Indians, having sold their land to the government, it was being rapidly settled upon by immigrants who were expecting to be allowed preemption of their settlements at government prices. Chattanooga was settled in the same way and had a population of several hundred, living in log cabins and board shanties. It had, however, an extensive trade with the Indians and with the back country in North Georgia and with the older settlements north of the Tennessee River. Among the settlers were many excellent people, a fair proportion of them being professors of religion, the larger number being Presbyterians. But there was no church organization or minister of any sort in the place or near it. The citizens had built a good-sized log schoolhouse, and occasionally visiting ministers would occupy it as a preaching place. Although I had been preaching for three or four years I had never received a cent for preaching and had not come to Chattanooga to engage in ministerial work, but, like others, to engage in a secular business. No Baptist preacher in East Tennessee a that time, so far as I know, received anything for preaching, or ever expected to. With the Baptist preacher of that day the first thing to do was to make a living, and then preach all he could. After the people found out that I was a young Baptist preacher they requested that I should preach for them on Sundays, when no one else had an appointment, which I did for two or three years, with a good deal of regularity. In the meantime the Indians were removed, the land was sold, and the town was laid off and rapidly increased in population, when the different denominations began to prepare for organization. The Presbyterians, being the strongest, took the lead, and, by the assistance of others, built a pretty good frame house on their lot, with the understanding that the Baptists and Methodists might have the use of the house by courtesy till they were able to build. Several Baptists had moved into the place and others lived in the neighborhood near by, who attended my preaching, but I had not intended an immediate organization. In the summer of 1840 I was called to Nashville on business, had a talk with Dr. Howell, pastor of the First Baptist Church, who urged that an organization be at
once gone into and a  regular pastor be secured. A young Brother Lindsley, educated and gifted, was conferred with, agreed upon, ordained by the Nashville First Church, put in charge of the Chattanooga interest, and in a few weeks Dr. Howell came over the mountains in the stage, and a small church was organized.  Following the organization Dr. Howell preached some strong sermons on the subjects and the act of baptism, which excited an interest and drew the crowd, also the fire of the other denominations. Brother Lindsley stayed with the church three or four months and sought another field, leaving me to keep up the meetings of the church. I had occasional visits from other ministers, especially from the well-known evangelist, Richard H. Taliaferro, under whose labors converts and accessions to the church were made. In the summer of 1841, to escape the prevailing malarial fever, I moved my family to Knoxville, stayed a year, and returned to Chattanooga, to preach for the Presbyterians and the Baptists alike in the Presbyterian house of worship. This I did for several months, leaving Chattanooga and the struggling Baptist interest, in the spring of 1843, to go to Middle Tennessee. Elder Sidney Dyer followed me as supply, Elder William Wood followed him, and about 1853 Elder Eugene Strode came to the city, gathered together the scattered elements of the church, reorganized the church, perhaps, and built a house of worship. I was never pastor of the church but gave it such volunteer labor as I was enabled from time to time to bestow, which amounted to little more than holding it together." These essential facts are followed by incidents bordering on the sensational and the romantic, but our space limits forbid their being recited here.