Oak Shade Baptist Church
Cleveland, Liberty County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The formation of this fellowship developed from an 1857 meeting in a log schoolhouse (0.5 miles south). Conducted by two missionaries of the Union Baptist Association, David Fisher and B. L. Wright, it showed a need for the establishment of a church in the area. Following a canvas of the surrounding community, the Oak Shade congregation was organized on July 4, 1857. The Rev. Austin Ellis (b. 1791), a native of Virginia, served as the first pastor. Prior to 1860 the church was moved to this site, part of the Daniel Donahoe survey. The membership began to decline in 1870 when the nearby Rural Shade Baptist Church (3 miles south) was started. In 1881 the Oak Shade congregation was reorganized and members built a one-room sanctuary here. A separate building was later constructed on the property to serve as a schoolhouse for the community. Worship services were held here in other structures until 1951 when a brick sanctuary was completed. Graves in the Oak Shade Cemetery include those of Andrew Jackson Isaacks (1817-1864), a veteran of the Texas Revolution who served as the first postmaster for Tarkington Prairie (5 miles southeast), and several victims of a 1918 influenza epidemic.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Out of an 1857 meeting in a log schoolhouse, two Union Baptist Association missionaries helped organize the Oak Shade congregation on July 4 of that year, with Virginia-born Rev. Austin Ellis as first pastor. The church weathered decline, reorganization, and several buildings before a brick sanctuary was completed in 1951. Its cemetery holds Texas Revolution veteran Andrew Jackson Isaacks and victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic.
Why it matters
The church and its graves gather together a full sweep of frontier East Texas history, from the Republic's founders to the global flu pandemic.
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Related people
- · Austin Ellis
- · Andrew Jackson Isaacks
Related events
- · 1918 influenza epidemic
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Andrew Jackson Isaacks
Cleveland, TX
Born in Mississippi in 1817, Andrew Jackson Isaacks came to Texas and fought in the Texas Revolution in 1835 before settling into the civic life of a young frontier region. He served as sheriff of Jasper County, raised a large family, farmed and ranched, and became the first postmaster at Tarkington Prairie in the 1850s. Buried where he died in 1864, his remains were reinterred at this site in 1970.
Oak Shade Cemetery
Cleveland, TX
Founded in 1845, the year Texas was annexed to the United States, Oak Shade Cemetery served the pioneer families settling the piney woods of Liberty County. Such burial grounds were often among the first permanent community institutions on the Texas frontier. It holds a Historic Texas Cemetery designation.
McGinnis Cemetery
Tarkington, TX
Established in 1861, McGinnis Cemetery began at the very outset of the Civil War, when the farming families of rural Liberty County were being drawn into the conflict that would reshape Texas. Frontier cemeteries of this era often gathered pioneer settlers and the war generation side by side. It carries a Historic Texas Cemetery designation.
Burton B. Tarkington
Cleveland, TX
Burton B. Tarkington and his wife Sarah left Indiana in the mid-1820s for the Mexican state of Coahuila, settling west of the Trinity River and building a ranch and farm on land that came to bear their name. Family tradition holds they fled in 1836 as Santa Anna's army advanced toward San Jacinto. After independence, the new Republic granted Tarkington more than 4,600 acres, and he later served in the Texas Militia and as a county commissioner.