Thomas "Sam" Doyle’s portraits hold the essence of life and place; they capture and preserve the soul and proud heritage of St. Helena Island and its inhabitants, past and present. The island, in the South Carolina low country, retained a uniquely Gullah culture and dialect, forged from a mixture of Afro-Caribbean influences during the era of slavery, and enduring after Emancipation due in part to its remoteness from the mainland; it was not until 1927 that bridges linked the island to Beaufort. Following the Civil War, the plantations were partitioned and the land granted to the former enslaved population and its descendants. In 1862, the Penn School was established by Quakers to educate freed slaves on the island. Doyle attended the school through ninth grade, when family circumstances forced him to leave. His artistic talent was recognized as a student, but it was not until after retirement that he was able to pursue his creative nature.

Doyle’s community taught him to honor his ancestors; the Penn School taught him to honor history. Collector and scholar Gordon W. Bailey has written that Doyle committed to "painting history" in two series, "Penn (school) and First (achievement or event) [that] commingled with his folkloric works and clearly established Doyle’s mission to honor Gullah culture and, more generally, African American advancement." Doyle’s art conjured elders, Gullah traditions and lore, and reflected experiences of his own generation and younger residents who were more in touch with notable figures and events in the world at large. He painted high-achieving African Americans on the national scene: political heroes, religious leaders, and sports figures. He immortalized ancestral island figures, and local characters and types. His preferred materials were reclaimed from his environment, primarily house paint on metal roofing or plywood panels. Over the years, Doyle filled his yard with art in a display he titled the "St. Helena Out Door Art Gallery." After 1982, when his work was included in the seminal exhibition Black Folk Art in America, 1930–1980, presented at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, Doyle was visited by many outsiders who came to experience his personal museum firsthand. In acknowledgement, he noted their places of origin on a 4 x 8 foot panel and also added the words "Nation Wide" to his own sign.

This painting seems to have held particular significance for the artist, who included his full name rather than his customary initials "S. D." It is painted on a vinyl tablecloth, a supple material that evokes the ripple of water when it moves. The cloth was apparently laid flat on the ground as Doyle worked; it bears the deliberate and nearly invisible mark of his footprints in a path that traces the demarcation between the sphere below a bridge that parts the waters, and the heavens above the waters where a baptism is being enacted. The figure on the upper right is Reverend Washington, an elder whose primary functions included the baptism of church members. His hands are placed on the head of a contemporary of Doyle, who was later to become a reverend. Time is therefore collapsed, conflating this important step at the beginning of Middleton’s spiritual journey with the present, and his attainment as a religious leader in the community. Doyle shares in the significance of the moment, his own head emerging from the baptismal waters just below Reverend Middleton.

Stacy C. Hollander, "Baptism of Reverend Midlton 1920 and Sam Doyle, c. 1970s" exhibition copy for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection. Stacy C. Hollander, curator. New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020.