First Baptist Church of Palmer
Palmer, Ellis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Rev. T. H. Durham preached at the organizational meeting of this Missionary Baptist Church on Nov. 17, 1873. Charter members included Lucinda Crawford, Susan and John Nixon, and Elizabeth and James Perkins. Worship services were originally held in the members' homes. By 1891, this Baptist fellowship was sharing a Union Church building with three other denominations. The present frame structure, built in 1900-1901, has been periodically enlarged and modernized. Five persons from this congregation have been ordained into the ministry. (1976)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded on November 17, 1873, at a meeting led by the Rev. T.H. Durham, this Missionary Baptist congregation first met in members' homes before sharing a Union Church with three other denominations by 1891. Its present frame sanctuary was built in 1900-1901 and enlarged over the years, and five of its members went on to be ordained. The church reflects the steady growth of faith communities in settling North Texas.
Why it matters
Palmer's church shows how shared "union" meetinghouses knit together small denominations in newly settled Texas towns.
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Related people
- · T.H. Durham
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Christian Church of Palmer
Palmer, TX
This congregation traces its roots to an 1853 church near Rockett and Brushy Creek whose members helped plant new churches across the area. When Robert "Uncle Bob" Smith and his wife Lavisa moved to Palmer in 1868, they helped organize the First Christian Church there, first meeting in a one-room schoolhouse and later sharing a community "union" sanctuary with the Baptist and Presbyterian congregations, each taking its assigned Sunday. The congregation built its own home in 1898 and moved to the present brick church in 1940, still ringing a bell salvaged from the old union building.
Smith Cemetery
Palmer, TX
Established in 1852 on a lonely knoll then surrounded by wilderness, Smith Cemetery was founded by Nancy Owen Smith for her family and neighbors. Its first burial was her husband Hans Smith, a former lawmaker in Missouri and Arkansas who moved to Ellis County in 1846, opened the area's first cotton gin, and helped organize the county before being robbed and murdered in Houston. Generations of pioneer descendants followed him into the ground here, and a cemetery association was chartered in 1955.
Rockett Christian Church
Rockett, TX
Growing out of worship services begun around 1853, the Rockett Christian Church was formally organized in 1894 and raised this Carpenter Gothic sanctuary in 1900–01. Its lancet windows, octagonal porch, beaded-board wainscoting, and original pews survive, and the building reopened for services after a quiet stretch in the 1960s.
Graves Cemetery
Waxahachie, TX
Robert Russell Graves brought his family from Alabama to Texas in 1838, and by 1857 they had settled 510 acres in Ellis County near the Rockett community. The oldest grave belongs to Robert's father-in-law Joseph Hinkle, buried here in 1859, and in 1895 the Graves children formally deeded just over an acre as a family burial ground. Many early pioneer families of the area lie beside them.