First Baptist Church of Newton
Newton, Newton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The earliest record of this congregation dates to 1861, when the Newton Baptist Church with a membership of about 35 was accepted into the Bethlehem Association. The first known pastor was the Rev. R. F. Fancher. Baptisms were held in Caney Creek. The fellowship built its first sanctuary about 1882 near the corner of Court and Rusk streets, but has worshiped at the present site since 1949. The name First Baptist Church was adopted in 1915. The congregation is a significant part of the religious heritage of Newton County. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This East Texas congregation traces its roots to 1861, when the Newton Baptist Church—about thirty-five members strong—joined the Bethlehem Association and baptized converts in the waters of Caney Creek. It built its first sanctuary around 1882, took the name First Baptist Church in 1915, and has worshiped at its present site since 1949. For more than a century and a half it has been woven into the religious life of Newton County.
Why it matters
Frontier churches like this were often the first institutions a young settlement built, and their long endurance marks the steady growth of community in the Texas Piney Woods.
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Related people
- · Rev. R. F. Fancher
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Town of Newton
Newton, TX
When Newton was laid out in 1853 in Texas's easternmost county, it was little more than a stand of oaks and beeches—yet its central location won it the county seat that very year. Major John Moore built its first house and its first frame courthouse, and for decades the town crept along, counting just four buildings in 1859. The railroad's arrival in 1905 finally spurred growth, and sawmills turning the surrounding forests into baskets, tool handles, turpentine, and furniture made timber the backbone of the town's economy.
Newton County Courthouse
Newton, TX
Newton County's present courthouse, raised in 1902-03 from brick fired on nearby Caney Creek, followed earlier courthouses at Burkeville in 1848 and on this square in 1853. Contractors Martin & Moody of Comanche gave it a Second Empire design with a mansard roof, corner quoins, and an unusual truncated clock tower. The interior was altered in 1910 and 1925, a jail was added in 1936, and the building was restored in the early 1970s.
Newton County
Newton, TX
Newton County was carved from Jasper County and organized in 1846, just as Texas joined the United States, and named for Sergeant John Newton, a hero of the American Revolution. Its county seat bounced between Newton and Burkeville before settling permanently at Newton in 1853. The naming honored a Revolutionary legacy even as a new American county took shape on the Louisiana border.
Wilson Chapel Cemetery
Newton, TX
This burial ground grew up around Wilson Chapel, credited to David McMahon, Newton County's first attorney, and holds a remarkable cross-section of the county's pioneer leaders. Among them are a Methodist minister, an early county organizer said to have been the youngest soldier at San Jacinto and later a Civil War veteran, and an English army captain turned frontier schoolteacher. Their marked graves, alongside others only remembered by name, sketch the first generation to build a community here.