First Missionary Baptist Church
Huntsville, Walker County, Texas
Marker Inscription
IN 1867, HUNTSVILLE METHODISTS AND BAPTISTS SHARED THE UNION CHURCH. TWO YEARS LATER, THE BAPTISTS BUILT A SEPARATE CHURCH IN THE ROGERSVILLE NEIGHBORHOOD CALLED FIRST MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH, WHICH WAS ORGANIZED BY REV. J.J. RHINEHARDT WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF “MOTHER” SARAH ROLLING. ON FEB. 27, 1872, THE CHURCH PURCHASED PROPERTY ON 10TH STREET, NEAR THE PRESENT LOCATION OF AVENUE P AND 10TH, FROM PHYLLIS RANDALL FOR $40 IN GOLD BY CLARK ROLAND (ROLLING), JOHN JAMES AND YORK HENDERSON WHO WERE THE CHURCH TRUSTEES. IT IS SAID THAT THIS SITE WAS WHERE GENERAL SAM HOUSTON AND A LAWYER NAMED WYLIE (ANDREW P. WILEY) DEBATED THE QUESTIONS OF SUCCESSION AND SLAVERY. A SECOND TRACT OF LAND ON THE WEST BANK OF TANYARD BRANCH AT THE NORTH SIDE OF FANNIN (10TH) STREET WAS PURCHASED FROM ELLEN MONTGOMERY FOR $100 BY TRUSTEES ON AUG. 4, 1877. THE MEMBERSHIP GREW UNDER REV. J. R. WOODALL’S LEADERSHIP AND THE CHURCH REMAINED STRONG UNTIL HIS UNTIMELY DEATH. UNDER THE ADMINISTRATION OF REV. WOODALL, A MODERN BRICK STRUCTURE WAS BUILT IN 1952 AT 1530 10TH STREET ON LAND BOUGHT FROM THE BOLDIN FAMILY, ACROSS FROM THE SITE OF THE ORIGINAL CHURCH, A WOODEN STRUCTURE, WHICH WAS LATER DEMOLISHED. THE CHURCH HAS HAD SEVERAL NOTABLE MEMBERS INCLUDING PROFESSOR SAMUEL WALKER HOUSTON, DEACON J.M. METTAWER, AND JOSHUA HOUSTON, SR. IMPORTANT CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE COMMUNITY HAVE BEEN THE CENTRAL DISTRICT MISSIONARY ASSOCIATION, “THE YOUTH REVIVAL” IN WHICH THE YOUTH DEPARTMENT DEVELOPED A SCHOLARSHIP AND FREE LUNCH PROGRAM FOR THE SICK AND SHUT-IN, SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASSES FOR THE ELDERLY AND YOUNG, FOOD DRIVES, BLACK HISTORY MONTH EVENTS, AND A SCHOLARSHIP FUND FOR GRADUATING HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS. TODAY, THE CHURCH CONTINUES AS A FOUNDATION FOR COMMUNITY PRIDE AND PROGRESS.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After sharing the Union Church with Methodists, Huntsville's Black Baptists organized their own First Missionary Baptist Church in 1869 in the Rogersville neighborhood, led by Rev. J.J. Rhinehardt with "Mother" Sarah Rolling. Trustees bought their first lot on 10th Street in 1872 for forty dollars in gold, and the congregation grew across generations, counting educator Samuel Walker Houston and Joshua Houston among its members. From food drives to scholarships, the church became a lasting engine of community life.
Why it matters
Independent Black churches like this were the first institutions freedpeople controlled outright, anchoring worship, education, and civic organizing after slavery.
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Related people
- · J.J. Rhinehardt
- · Sarah Rolling
- · Samuel Walker Houston
- · Joshua Houston, Sr.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Rogersville
Huntsville, TX
Rogersville is Huntsville's oldest African-American neighborhood, born when former mayor Micajah Rogers began selling tracts to freed people in 1866 — among the buyers, Sam Houston's former body servant Joshua Houston. Freedpeople here built homes, churches, and businesses from blacksmith shops to cafes, and turned their churches into schools when public ones were denied. It became the heart of Huntsville's Black community and the home of its annual Juneteenth celebration.
Joshua Houston
Huntsville, TX
Born into slavery in Alabama and brought to Texas in 1840 in the household of Sam and Margaret Houston, Joshua Houston rose after emancipation into one of Walker County's most respected leaders. He built businesses and won public trust as a Huntsville alderman, county commissioner, and delegate to the Republican National Convention. A steadfast champion of Black education, he was buried near the general whose household he had once served.
George Washington Grant and Grant's Colony
Huntsville, TX
An Alabama native who came to Texas in 1831, George Washington Grant built a sprawling enterprise of stagecoaches, sawmills, and nearly 10,000 acres around Huntsville, and helped found Sam Houston Normal Institute and served as sheriff and county judge during Reconstruction. Though he had held people in slavery before the war, after Emancipation he sold and donated land to freedmen and, with the Quakers and the Freedmen's Bureau, created the community he called Harmony Settlement—better known as Grant's Colony—complete with farmhouses, a cotton gin, and a school open to children of any race.
Sam Houston Industrial and Training School
Huntsville, TX
Born in Huntsville in 1864 to enslaved parents, Samuel W. Houston earned degrees from Hampton, Atlanta University, and Howard before returning home to build schools for African American children in an era when the state funneled only Black-paid taxes toward their education. Around 1906 he opened classes in the rented Galilee Methodist Church, and the Sam Houston Industrial and Training School grew to serve hundreds of students statewide with vocational and academic programs. Merged into the Huntsville school system by 1930, it became Sam Houston High School and endured until integration in 1968.