Bethel Primitive Baptist Church
McMahan, Caldwell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This congregation was organized June 19, 1852, in the home of John Fleming near this site. Elders George Daniels and Reuben W. Ellis from the Plum Creek Primitive Baptist Church were called to serve as pastors by the charter members: James Jeffrey, Mary Ann Jeffrey, John M. fleming, Abigail fleming, Richard Cole, Sarah Cole, John B. Jeffrey, Elinder Jeffrey, robert McFeron, and Sarah McFeron. A church building was erected at this site in 1901. Bethel Primitive Baptist Church continues to minister to McMahan and the surrounding area s it has since 1852. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1852 in the home of pioneer John Fleming, this Primitive Baptist congregation gathered a handful of frontier families in what became McMahan. Members worshipped for decades before erecting a permanent church building at this site in 1901, and the congregation continues to serve the community today.
Why it matters
Frontier churches were the social and moral anchors of scattered rural communities across antebellum Texas.
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Related people
- · John Fleming
- · George Daniels
- · Reuben W. Ellis
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jeffrey Cemetery
Lockhart, TX
Abraham Roberts and his wife Cynthia Jeffrey brought their family from Alabama to Texas in 1838, and by 1840 had claimed land on Tinney's Creek. When their granddaughter died while visiting in 1847, the family made the first burial here, and neighbors soon adopted the spot as a community graveyard. Formally named Jeffrey Cemetery in 1938, it holds several hundred graves, including veterans reaching back to the U.S.-Mexican War, and still hosts family homecomings.
Clark's Chapel Cemetery
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When William and Nancy Clark brought their family from Alabama to Caldwell County in 1850, worship in this corner of central Texas still happened in parlors and open fields. That changed in 1877, when twenty-six neighbors gathered in the Clark home to organize a Methodist congregation, and a land gift from Joseph and Jennie Magee soon gave them both a church and a burying ground. The little two-year-old laid to rest here in 1882 became the first of generations linked by this soil, and long after the church itself came down in 1950, Clark and Magee descendants kept the cemetery alive through reunions and shared care.
Clark Cemetery
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North Carolina native James E. Clark came to Texas and married in Bastrop County before buying land in this area in 1881, where he and his wife Mary raised nine children. In 1884 he set aside ground for both a school and a family cemetery, and when he died in 1898 his was the first marked grave. The adjoining community center now stands on the site of the old school, tying the two institutions together.
Isham Jones Good
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Georgia-born Isham Jones Good came to Texas in 1835 as a volunteer for the fight for independence from Mexico, narrowly escaping the 1836 Goliad Massacre that claimed Colonel Fannin's command. He returned to settle the frontier, fought in the 1840 Indian battle of Plum Creek, served as an early postmaster and Caldwell County's first sheriff, and helped organize the county in 1848 before turning to cattle ranching in Hays County.