DeBerry Baptist Church
DeBerry, Panola County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This fellowship grew from the pioneer Bell-Fountain Baptist Church, which was organized prior to the Civil War. After a fire destroyed the Bell-Fountain Chapel in 1880, members started two separate congregations: Shady Grove and DeBerry. Land for construction of the first DeBerry sanctuary was donated by Holland Livingston Anderson. The Rev. T. A. Coleman served as the first pastor. Adjacent land and new facilities were added later as the church grew. For over a century DeBerry Baptist Church has led in service work and community development.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This East Texas fellowship traces its origins to the pioneer Bell-Fountain Baptist Church, organized before the Civil War. When fire destroyed the Bell-Fountain chapel in 1880, its members formed two new congregations—Shady Grove and DeBerry—the latter building its first sanctuary on donated land under its first pastor. The church has served the DeBerry community for well over a century.
Why it matters
The congregation's unbroken life from antebellum frontier roots shows how rural churches anchored East Texas communities through war, hardship, and generations of change.
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Related people
- · Holland Livingston Anderson
- · T. A. Coleman
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bracken Cemetery
DeBerry, TX
Pioneer settlers Thomas and Mary Bracken brought their family to this corner of East Texas in the 1830s and set aside part of their land as a burial ground for their family and neighbors. The oldest marked grave belongs to the infant Clarence Liston, who died in 1876, and the cemetery holds pioneers from a scattering of early settlements—Grand Bluff, Elysian Fields, DeBerry, and others. Their son-in-law Dan Briggs formally deeded the site as a cemetery in 1891.
Bell-Fountain Cemetery
DeBerry, TX
This East Texas farming community grew up around the early Kinlock post office, its settlers sharing a five-acre burial ground deeded to the Bell-Fountain Baptist Church, founded before the Civil War. The earliest marked grave, a child who died in 1850, and the several Confederate veterans laid to rest here mark the sweep of pioneer life through the war years. After the church burned in 1880 and the congregation dispersed, descendants preserved the site, fencing the plot and raising a tabernacle where the church once stood.
Mt. Zion Cemetery
Carthage, TX
This burial ground began on land owned by pioneer settlers Richard and Polly Golden, whose daughter and son-in-law buried a child here in the 1840s before deeding the tract to the Mt. Zion Methodist Church and Cemetery in 1850. More land came from the local farmers' Grange when it disbanded, and the cemetery—still in use—holds many of Panola County's early leaders and veterans of American military service. The site is a layered record of frontier settlement, faith, and civic organization in East Texas.
Shady Grove Baptist Church
DeBerry, TX
Shady Grove Baptist Church was serving the rural residents of northeast Panola County by 1880, with the Rev. J. R. Alexander leading the congregation for nearly three decades. Its original one-room wooden building did double duty as church and school before a brick facility replaced it in 1954, and the adjacent cemetery holds burials dating to 1892. The church remained a fixture of country community life.