HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

Mount Pleasant Baptist Church

Comanche vicinity, Comanche County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Organized under a brush arbor, with 21 charter members, Oct. 16, 1892. First pastor, F. M. Herring, and E. M. Moore, Jesse Cunningham and C. C. McCurdy composed the presbytery. Will Dewitt gave land, Nov. 26, 1892, on which the first building was dedicated, May 1893. Tabernacle was built in 1906 and present church, 1913. The charter members were The Revs. and Mmes. Frank Herring and Jim Fagan; Messrs. and Mmes. Will Dewitt, Jake Hodges, John Cameron, Dave Coker, Alfred Loftis and J. A. Payne; also Mrs. E. B. Farmer, Beckie Leech, Green West, Cordelia McNutt, Z. K. Smith. (1969)

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

This congregation began in October 1892 under a brush arbor, the humble open-air shelter of frontier worship, with twenty-one charter members and their first pastor, F. M. Herring. When Will Dewitt donated land that November, the community dedicated its first building the following spring. A tabernacle followed in 1906 and the present church in 1913, tracing the steady growth of a pioneer congregation.

Why it matters

Brush-arbor churches like this one were the spiritual and social anchors of frontier Texas, binding scattered settler families into lasting communities.

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Related people

  • · F. M. Herring
  • · Will Dewitt

Themes & tags

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