New Mine Baptist Church
Pittsburg, Camp County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This congregation traces its history to 1892 when Mr. and Mrs. G. O. Hart gave an acre of land for a new church building. The church was officially organized on September 11, 1892, and the Rev. J. H. Floyd served as the first pastor. One of the main reasons for the establishment of this congregation was so the members would not have to travel to Pittsburg for worship services. It has remained a small rural church, with various structures built over the years to accommodate the membership, which includes descendants of charter members.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Mr. and Mrs. G. O. Hart gave an acre of land in 1892, the families of this East Texas neighborhood gained something they had long wanted: a church of their own, so they no longer had to make the trip into Pittsburg for Sunday worship. Organized that September with the Rev. J. H. Floyd as first pastor, New Mine Baptist Church stayed small and rural through the generations. Its pews have long held descendants of the original charter members.
Why it matters
The founding impulse here — a scattered farming community wanting worship close to home — is the quiet engine behind thousands of country churches that knit rural America together.
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Related people
- · G. O. Hart
- · Rev. J. H. Floyd
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
New Mine Cemetery
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George and Julia Hart deeded land to the New Mine Baptist Church in 1892, and for years the congregation buried its dead in neighboring graveyards before founding one of its own in 1930. The first grave was James Quillin's that year, and in 1937 George Hart himself was reinterred here at his family's request. The congregation has maintained the grounds ever since, gathering each year for a memorial service, business meeting, and dinner that doubles as a family reunion.
Reeves Chapel
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When a migrant worker died in 1879 with no place to be buried, Georgia-born Civil War veteran Counce Reeves and his wife Selina donated two acres for a church and burial ground in this Camp County community. A visiting minister organized the Reeves Chapel Methodist congregation, which first met under a brush arbor before building a frame meetinghouse that same autumn. As the fellowship grew, the family gave still more land and the members set out to raise a larger building.
Shootout at the Pittsburg Depot
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On February 10, 1885, a tangled domestic dispute among George "Dallas" Smart, his wife Annie, and U.S. Army Lt. John W. Heard boiled over into a public confrontation at the Pittsburg railroad depot. As Heard prepared to leave town, a struggle egged on by the gathered crowd ended with Heard shooting and killing Smart. A county judge ruled it self-defense the next day, and after later clearing himself in a court-martial and another trial, Heard went on to a distinguished military career. Annie remarried and died in New Mexico Territory in 1900.
Stafford-Paris House
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