First Baptist Church of Wills Point
Wills Point, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The First Baptist Church of Wills Point was founded in 1873, with Dr. J. L. Matthews, a doctor of medicine, serving as the first pastor. In 1876 the 30-member congregation erected a building, which is said to have been destroyed in a tornado the same year. Despite such setbacks, the church continued to grow, expanding its educational programs and erecting new facilities in later years. A charter member of the Van Zandt Association, established in 1905 and reorganized in 1935, the First Baptist Church has produced several missionaries and pastors from its membership. (1983)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1873 with the physician Dr. J. L. Matthews as its first pastor, this congregation erected a building in 1876 that a tornado is said to have destroyed the same year. Undaunted, the church grew, broadened its educational programs, and became a charter member of the Van Zandt Baptist Association in 1905. Over the years it sent out several of its own members as missionaries and pastors.
Why it matters
The church's persistence through disaster typifies the stubborn faith that planted enduring institutions across small-town Texas.
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Related people
- · Dr. J. L. Matthews
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Christian Church of Wills Point
Wills Point, TX
Founded in 1882, this congregation first met in the town's Presbyterian church and baptized its members in a cotton-gin pond north of town before erecting its own building in 1886 and adding the town's first baptistry in 1891—offered freely to other area churches. A parsonage was bought on Pecan Street in the 1920s, and over the years the church became a training ground for many student pastors from Texas Christian University.
Russell Memorial United Methodist Church
Wills Point, TX
This congregation began in 1875 as the Wills Point Methodist Episcopal Church, South, after a retired minister led services for the young community, and it called its first resident pastor in 1878. Its early sanctuary, built about 1877, was flattened by an 1890 tornado and quickly rebuilt. In 1924 a new edifice was named for a deceased steward, Eric A. Russell, and over the decades the congregation absorbed neighboring flocks before consecrating its present home in 1974.
Wills Point Schools
Wills Point, TX
Wills Point city leaders launched a public school system in 1886, starting classes in a rented building under the town's first superintendent. In 1891 trustees bought part of a pioneer settler's homesite that became the district's lasting campus, and over the following decades more than twenty rural schools consolidated into what became an independent district in 1913.
Cartwright School
Wills Point, TX
Wills Point made provisions for its first African American public school around 1878, and despite chronic underfunding it drew certified Black teachers who taught children by day and their parents by night. In 1930 it was named for principal Robert L. Cartwright, and a new building rose with land and labor from the local Black community and a grant from the Rosenwald Foundation. Extended to a twelfth grade and accredited by 1949, the school graduated its last class in 1965 as integration arrived.