Hopewell Baptist Church
Navarro, Navarro County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Organized on August 2, 1866, Hopewell Baptist Church was founded by ten charter members: Emily Meador, Thomas Meador, Elizabeth Ann Meador, John M. Tate, Mary Tate, Eleanor D. Bright, Eleanor Crabb Bright, Sarah McDonnell, the Rev. Hardeman Royster Puryear, and Caroline Adams Puryear. The first worship service was a protracted meeting of several days, during which 15 new members joined the church. The Rev. Mr. Puryear was called as the church's first pastor. The congregation purchased three acres of land in the summer of 1867, and by November 1868 their first sanctuary was completed. Located adjacent to the present Hopewell Cemetery, the building served the congregation at that site for four decades. After the townsite of Navarro was laid out along the Trinity and Brazos Valley Rail Line, the congregation voted to relocate and the church building was moved in 1907. The only church in the community, Hopewell Baptist has continued steadfast over the years. After a 1939 wind storm damaged the sanctuary, it was rebuilt near the original site. Hopewell Baptist Church remains an important part of the area's history.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Just after the Civil War, in August 1866, ten charter members organized Hopewell Baptist Church in rural Navarro County, drawing fifteen more worshipers during a days-long founding revival. Led first by the Rev. Hardeman Royster Puryear, the congregation bought land, raised a sanctuary by 1868, and later moved the building to follow the new railroad townsite of Navarro in 1907. Rebuilt after a 1939 windstorm, the church has endured as the community's steadfast center.
Why it matters
Rural churches organized in the immediate postwar years show how communities knit themselves back together in Reconstruction-era Texas, often outlasting the towns and rail lines around them.
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Related people
- · Hardeman Royster Puryear
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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