First Baptist Church of Kennedale
Kennedale, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Believed to have been organized before 1887, this congregation met for worship in a local schoolhouse and baptized new members in nearby creeks and a small lake to the tune of "Shall We Gather at The River." Land was deeded to the Kennedale Baptist Church in 1887; in 1895 the church joined the Tarrant County Baptist Association. The Kennedale community tabernacle, shared with area Methodists, was used for larger socials and revivals. By 1896 the congregation was installed in a one-room structure of its own with the Reverend G. W. Green as pastor. A parsonage was built on church property in 1938, and by 1940 an addition to the original one room building was required. A new two-story Austin stone structure with tall stained glass windows and a balcony in the auditorium, built in 1954, was destroyed by fire in 1959. Undaunted, church members raised $3,585.65, sold the parsonage, and erected a fellowship hall. By 1961, a new church building faced east. The First Baptist Church of Kennedale continues a proud tradition of over 110 years of community service with such programs as the Women's Missionary Union, established in August 1903, and a taped ministry for shut-ins. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in the 1880s, this Baptist congregation first met in a Kennedale schoolhouse and baptized its converts in nearby creeks and a small lake to the strains of "Shall We Gather at the River." Land was deeded to the church in 1887, and by 1896 the members had their own one-room building under Reverend G. W. Green. Through additions, a 1954 stone sanctuary lost to fire in 1959, and determined rebuilding, the church sustained more than a century of community life, including a long-running Women's Missionary Union founded in 1903.
Why it matters
The congregation's story reflects how frontier churches knit together new Texas communities and endured hardship through the shared faith and labor of their members.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- ¡ G. W. Green
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hawkins Cemetery
Arlington, TX
Named for Tennessee-born pioneer Harvey Hawkins, who received a 160-acre land grant signed by Governor Sam Houston in 1860, this cemetery began as a family plot for the Tate Springs community. By local memory an enslaved man named Poly Penn was the first buried here, though his grave is unmarked; the earliest lettered stone dates to 1868. As the settlement grew, the plot became a public burial ground in 1890, chronicling the pioneer families who put down roots in the mid-1800s.
Hudson Cemetery
Kennedale, TX
When John and Winnie Hudson's young daughter Ary Mae died in 1878, her grave became the first on the family's Tarrant County land, soon joined by her twin sister, reinterred from a distant county to rest beside her. In 1892 the Hudsons deeded three acres for a community cemetery, and by 1996 more than five hundred graves recorded the pioneers of the surrounding countryside. Community funds organized across the 20th century have kept the ground tended.
New Hope Baptist Church
Mansfield, TX
Founded before 1886 by the Rev. D. F. Smith and fourteen charter members, New Hope Baptist Church first gathered once a month in the local New Hope schoolhouse. A charter member's son, J. J. Williams, donated land for a building in 1903, dedicated in 1905, and the congregation gradually moved from monthly to twice-monthly and finally full-time services by 1942. New sanctuaries in 1948 and 1972 kept pace with a growing membership.
Walnut Creek Cemetery
Fort Worth, TX
Established around 1881 on the edge of a rapidly growing Fort Worth, Walnut Creek Cemetery holds the graves of the farm and ranch families who settled Tarrant County in the decades after the Civil War. Fort Worth in that era was a booming cattle-drive town at the northern reach of the Chisholm Trail, and burying grounds like this one anchored the rural communities on its outskirts. The state's Historic Texas Cemetery designation in 2009 recognized its enduring role in local memory.