Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church
Mineola, Wood County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Started as the Holly Springs Baptist Church of Christ, this fellowship is one of the oldest in Wood County. The first meeting was held on November 18, 1853, at the residence of J. D. J. Davis, who served as pastor. Charter members were Samuel Davis, Peter Magnus Gunstream, and Mary Alitia Gunstream. Early worship services were held in a log building and later in a chapel at Liberty Hill, now Pine Mills (1.5 mi. E). A new sanctuary was built here by 1860 and the church name was changed in 1865. The membership has included many early county leaders. (1981)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
One of the oldest fellowships in Wood County, this church began in 1853 as the Holly Springs Baptist Church of Christ, meeting first in the home of pastor J. D. J. Davis with a tiny circle of charter members. Early worship moved from a log building to a chapel at Liberty Hill, now Pine Mills, and a new sanctuary went up here by 1860. The congregation, renamed Mt. Pisgah in 1865, counted many of the county's early leaders among its members.
Why it matters
Mt. Pisgah's founding in a settler's home just a few years after the county opened shows how quickly faith communities anchored new settlement on the antebellum Texas frontier.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · J. D. J. Davis
- · Peter Magnus Gunstream
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Concord Cemetery
Quitman, TX
Settlers founded the Concord community in the 1870s, and early resident Hubbard Moseley gave land for a burial ground, a school, and a Baptist chapel. Velinda Wood, laid to rest in July 1875, has the oldest marked grave, though unmarked earlier burials lie among the roughly one thousand people from Concord, Hainesville, and nearby settlements interred here. Generations of caretakers and a cemetery association have tended the grounds ever since.
Little Hope Missionary Baptist Church
Winnsboro, TX
Five charter members gathered under a brush arbor in 1881 to organize this Wood County congregation, which by legend earned its name from doubts it would last even a year. Early converts were baptized in a neighbor's mill pond, land was donated by local settlers, and the fellowship not only survived but helped found a nearby sister congregation, serving the area for well over a century.
Martin Varner
Mineola, TX
This state marker honors Martin Varner as a volunteer soldier who fought for Texas independence at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. That short, decisive engagement secured the young republic's break from Mexico. Erected by the State of Texas in 1962, the marker stands near Varner's Wood County resting place.
Martin Varner
Mineola, TX
Martin Varner reached Texas before 1820 and became one of the "Old Three Hundred" families who settled Stephen F. Austin's first colony, building a plantation near Columbia. He took up arms in the pivotal clashes of the Texas independence struggle, fighting at Velasco in 1832 and at San Jacinto in 1836. Varner moved to Wood County late in life and died in 1844 of wounds from a quarrel over a debt.