James A. Ranaldson

James A. Ranaldson (1789 – 17 June 1849) was a Baptist missionary who was active in the Mississippi Baptist Association and one of the founders of the Alabama Baptist Convention.

Ranaldson was born in Brunswick County, North Carolina in 1789. He became a Baptist minister around 1812. Moving to New Orleans, Louisiana in 1817, he worked for several months as a missionary in the Indian territories of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Later that year he founded Shiloh Church in Feliciana, Mississippi, and became a teacher to cover his expenses, establishing the Society Hill Academy in 1818. In October 1818 the report was received and he was made Secretary of the Mississippi Baptist Education Society for three years. He was an active member of the Mississippi Baptist Association until 1829, preaching in different churches and serving at different times as a messenger, clerk and secretary. Charles Crow was appointed president of the new Convention, and Ranaldson secretary. Ranaldson moved to Jackson, Louisiana around 1831, where he founded a school. After briefly associating with the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement and becoming a farmer, he returned to the Baptist faith and founded a church at Port Hudson, Louisiana, where he died on June 17, 1849.