Pearl Baptist Church
Pearl, Coryell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This church was organized in 1884 under the guidance of the Rev. E. Berry, a pioneer area missionary and preacher. Originally located in the Bee House community (4 mi. W), it was first known as the Bee House Missionary Baptist Church. Early worship services were held in the Masonic lodge hall that also served as the community schoolhouse. When the church relocated here in 1889, the congregational name was changed to Mt. Olive Missionary Baptist Church. The surrounding settlement was then known as Wayback, but later renamed Pearl. Early settler and rancher Charles T. Karnes sold three acres of his property to the church for their first sanctuary at this site. The small frame structure was used for worship services until 1949. The congregation met for church services on the fourth Sunday of each month until 1957, when its first full time pastor was secured. A tabernacle, built about 1908 on the boundary line between the Baptist and Methodist Church properties, has been the site of many revivals. Summer brush arbor meetings were held before construction of the tabernacle. For over a century the Pearl Baptist Church has played a significant role in the area's history. (1985)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1884 under pioneer missionary the Rev. E. Berry, this congregation began four miles west as the Bee House Missionary Baptist Church, worshiping in a Masonic hall that also served as the community schoolhouse. When it relocated in 1889 to land sold by rancher Charles T. Karnes, it took the name Mt. Olive, and the settlement once called Wayback was later renamed Pearl. A tabernacle built about 1908 on the line between the Baptist and Methodist properties long hosted revivals and summer brush-arbor meetings.
Why it matters
For over a century this rural congregation has been a fixture of community life in the Coryell County hills.
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Related people
- · Rev. E. Berry
- · Charles T. Karnes
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Pearl Church of Christ
Pearl, TX
Worship in this corner of Coryell County began in the Bee House community around 1878 and moved to the first Pearl schoolhouse on Cowhouse Creek before the Church of Christ was organized in 1895. Members bought land, raised a sanctuary, and in 1904 built a tabernacle for the marathon summer revivals — days-long meetings running from sunrise to late evening — that it still hosts. More than a century on, the church continues to serve its rural membership.
Pearl Cemetery
Pearl, TX
In the rolling country of Coryell County, the community first called Wayback—a clerical mangling of "Swayback"—took the softer name Pearl in 1890 for a postmaster's young cousin. Its cemetery grew out of grief and generosity when the Keeton family set aside land after burying fourteen-year-old Lillian in 1896, later deeding acreage for public graves. The ground holds pioneers, victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic including a doctor who died treating the sick, and veterans of every American war from the Civil War through Vietnam.
John Paney Bertrand
Purmela, TX
The son of French immigrants who reached Texas before the Revolution, John Bertrand grew up in Brazoria County and ran a mercantile business in Washington County before leaving to serve in the Confederate Army. After the Civil War he married, moved to Coryell County in 1875, and settled 312 acres, raising eight children in a log cabin while he farmed and ran livestock. His story mirrors the westward push of many Texans rebuilding their lives on the land after the war.
Slater Cemetery
Pearl, TX
The Slater Cemetery is nearly all that survives of a once-thriving farming and ranching community that took root in Coryell County in the late 1800s. By the early 1900s Slater supported two churches, a post office, a school, and businesses. In 1907 James and Ellen Martin donated land for a free burial ground, and their son Curry, buried that year, lies in its oldest marked grave.