Bethlehem Baptist Church
Terrell, Kaufman County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The oldest black Baptist congregation extant in Terrell, this church traces its history to 1877, when a group of worshipers led by missionary A. R. Griggs met under a brush arbor. With the Rev. P. W. Upshaw serving as first pastor, church members erected a sanctuary at what is now the 400 block of East Grove Street. The building was moved to the corner of S. Virginia and Cottage streets in 1889. A new facility, built in the early 1900s, was relocated to this site in 1929. It was destroyed in a 1939 fire and replaced by a new structure in 1940. (1989)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Bethlehem Baptist traces its roots to 1877, when Black worshipers led by missionary A. R. Griggs gathered under a brush arbor in Terrell during the hard years of Reconstruction. Under its first pastor, the Rev. P. W. Upshaw, the congregation raised a sanctuary and then repeatedly rebuilt—moving in 1889, erecting a new church in the early 1900s, and recovering after a 1939 fire to build anew in 1940. It endures as the oldest Black Baptist congregation in the city.
Why it matters
Independent Black churches founded after emancipation were centers of worship, education and self-governance, anchoring African American community life in the post–Civil War South.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1877 Reconstruction was coming to an end across the South. For formerly enslaved people and their children, the years after emancipation had brought real if fragile new freedoms: to marry legally, to move, to learn to read, and to worship in churches of their own choosing and leadership. As federal protection faded, the institutions Black communities built for themselves became even more important.
Terrell was a young town at the time, a railroad community on the prairie east of Dallas that grew up in the early 1870s. Railroad towns drew workers, farmers and families looking for opportunity, Black and white. Black residents there, as across Texas, set about building the churches, schools and mutual-aid networks that would carry them through segregation.
The brush arbor where this congregation first met was a common starting point. Before a community could afford a building, worshipers cut branches and laid them over a simple frame of poles for shade. Many Black congregations in the South began this way, preaching and singing in the open air until they could raise money for walls and a roof.
People & events
The story starts with missionary A. R. Griggs, who led a group of worshipers in those first brush-arbor services in 1877. Missionaries like him traveled among new and growing Black communities, organizing congregations, encouraging education and helping establish Baptist churches. The marker credits him with planting the seed of what became Bethlehem Baptist.
The Rev. P. W. Upshaw served as the first pastor. Under his leadership the members built their first sanctuary in what is now the 400 block of East Grove Street. For a congregation of working families only a few years removed from slavery or its shadow, putting up a building was a serious act of collective sacrifice and faith.
After that, the church kept moving and rebuilding. In 1889 the building was moved to the corner of South Virginia and Cottage streets. In the early 1900s the congregation put up a new facility, and in 1929 they relocated it to the present site. When fire destroyed it in 1939, the members rebuilt again and had a new structure up by 1940. Across all those moves, the congregation endured and became the oldest Black Baptist congregation still existing in Terrell.
Its place in the American story
After emancipation, independent Black churches grew into the most important institutions in African American life in the South. They were places of worship, but also schoolhouses, meeting halls, political forums, mutual-aid societies and centers of celebration and mourning. Baptist churches in particular spread widely, partly because each congregation governed itself, which let Black communities choose their own leaders and run their own affairs.
Bethlehem Baptist's story fits a pattern seen across the country: humble outdoor beginnings, determined building campaigns, and repeated recovery from setbacks. Each move and rebuilding meant raising money from a community with limited resources, in an era when segregation and discrimination closed many other doors.
Congregations like this one also built the networks of leadership and organization that later generations drew on. The roots of twentieth-century Black civic life and the civil rights movement run through thousands of local churches founded in the decades after the Civil War, places much like this one.
If you visit
When you stand at this marker, try to picture the whole journey: a shaded arbor of branches, then a first sanctuary on Grove Street, a move across town, a new building hauled to this spot, and finally a church rising from the ashes of the 1939 fire. The building you see stands on top of more than a century of persistence.
This is an active place of worship, so visit respectfully, especially on Sundays or during services. Reading the marker and taking in the building from outside is a quiet, meaningful stop.
Terrell is an easy stop for travelers heading east from Dallas, and the town's railroad-era roots are worth exploring while you're there. The marker gives a good starting point for a family conversation about how communities build something lasting from very little.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · A. R. Griggs
- · P. W. Upshaw
Themes & tags
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