Clearwater Baptist Church
Winnsboro, Franklin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Clearwater Baptist Church In the mid-19th century, early area settlers labored in sawmills and over crops, including corn, potatoes and cotton. In 1869, the Rev. Elisha Blanton and nine others organized a Baptist church in a home near a sawmill north of nearby Bethel. Three years later, the church joined the Rehoboth association, a network of area Baptist congregations. Church member, and owner of the sawmill, C. Henry Lennon served after Blanton as pastor of the congregation. When Lennon relocated the sawmill c. 1875, the church followed, holding services in the home of E. Whittiker, near the Clearwater Cemetery (1.1 mi. E). By 1880, the congregation was meeting in the old Clearwater School, which was used until they could build a sanctuary. In the summer of 1884, Isaac and Catherine Winkle conveyed one acre of land to Clearwater Baptist Church. On this acre, the first sanctuary was built in 1888. Records indicate it was not completed until 1902, when the local Woodmen of the World lodge built a hall on the second floor and helped complete the original structure. In 1917-18, the congregation built a new sanctuary; it was destroyed by fire ten years later. Reese and Flora Anderson Camp and Arthur and Ada Camp Hawkins helped secure from the Center Ridge Community a church building, which was moved to this site, piece by piece, in 1932. The dedicatory sermon was delivered in 1934. Shortly thereafter, the community schoolhouse burned, and the church provided classroom space. During its many years as a congregation, Clearwater Baptist Church has continued its association with the Rehoboth association, also affiliating with the Smyrna association. Periods of growth brought additional facilities and resources. Through its revivals, youth ministries and other outreach programs, the church has supported the lives of those in Clearwater and the surrounding communities. (2003)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1869, four years after the Civil War, the Rev. Elisha Blanton and nine neighbors organized a Baptist church in a home near a sawmill in this corner of Franklin County, where settlers labored over corn, potatoes, and cotton. The congregation followed the sawmill when it moved, worshiped in homes and the old Clearwater School, and finally built a sanctuary in 1888 whose upper floor housed a Woodmen of the World lodge. Fire and relocation forced repeated rebuilding, including a church moved to this site piece by piece in 1932.
Why it matters
Clearwater Baptist traces how faith, milling, and schooling intertwined in postwar rural East Texas, the church repeatedly rebuilt as the community's steady center.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Elisha Blanton
- · C. Henry Lennon
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
New Hope Baptist Church
Mount Vernon, TX
Organized in 1875 by circuit rider the Rev. John J. Jones, this Franklin County congregation of thirty began meeting in members' homes and under brush arbors, holding baptisms in nearby Stout's Creek. Chronically short of funds, the church nearly disbanded in 1928 for want of a minister until the Rev. John H. Hayes stepped in to serve without a salary. Members built a new sanctuary from the old building's lumber in 1944, keeping the small rural congregation alive.
Leesburg Cemetery
Leesburg, TX
The Leesburg Cemetery has served this small Camp County community since 1870, its graves quietly recording the lives of the families who settled and sustained East Texas in the decades after the Civil War. Designated a Historic Texas Cemetery, the grounds mark the endurance of a rural settlement whose story is written in its headstones.
Monticello Missionary Baptist Church
Mount Pleasant, TX
The community of Monticello, named for Thomas Jefferson's Virginia home, took shape in the 1850s and won a post office in 1857, growing into a small hub of mills, gins, a brick factory and a school. Its Baptist congregation appears in association records by 1878 and in 1919 moved to this site, where members donated pine trees, hauled the logs by mule wagon to a local mill, and raised a cross-gabled frame sanctuary in just three months. The church long served as the community's spiritual and social heart, and by the 21st century, as lignite mining and recreational lakes reshaped the land, it stood as one of Monticello's last historic landmarks.
Providence Cemetery
Mount Vernon, TX
Established in 1845 beside Providence Primitive Baptist Church—organized three years earlier by William J. and Sarah Caudle—this cemetery reflects frontier life when churches supplied not just worship but law, order, and social gathering, served by circuit-riding preachers. Much of the ground was donated, and among its estimated 1,400-plus graves early families marked resting places with petrified wood, colored glass, and homemade castings, many since lost to weather. Now a designated Historic Texas Cemetery, it holds many veterans' graves amid obelisks, ironwork, and an angel statue.