Jefferson Hardshell Church (Location Key)

In The Mansion Tug Nightingale and his father worship at a "little backstreet Hardshell church" somewhere in Jefferson (203). The term "hardshell" refers to a branch of the Baptist religion that is extremely conservative. The novel also includes a Baptist Church in Jefferson, but that is almost certainly a larger, more mainstream branch of the faith - though throughout Faulkner's fiction the Baptists are portrayed as conservative. Two other texts refer to the Baptist church in Jefferson - "A Rose for Emily" and "That Evening Sun" - but this is the only reference in the fictions to this "backstreet" church.