Plantersville Baptist Church
Plantersville, Grimes County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Organized May, 1861, with Rev. N. T. Byars as pastor. Worship was in a schoolhouse until erection of this building, which was dedicated Aug. 4, 1872. Cost $2,701.73, paid in gold. Church bell came by oxcart from San Antonio. Building, including pews (hand-hewn), is in original state. Through years church has had two missions, Todd and Smith's Store, under its guidance. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1967
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Plantersville Baptist Church was organized in May 1861 under the Rev. N. T. Byars, worshipping in a schoolhouse until this sanctuary was dedicated in 1872 at a cost of more than $2,700, paid in gold. Its bell was hauled by oxcart from San Antonio, and the building — including its hand-hewn pews — survives in its original state. Over the years the congregation guided two mission churches, at Todd and Smith's Store.
Why it matters
A rare survivor built and paid for in the hard years around the Civil War, the church preserves the craftsmanship and faith of a Texas farming community in remarkably original form.
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Related people
- · Rev. N. T. Byars
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Plantersville Baptist Church
Plantersville, TX
Organized in May 1861 by pioneer elders in the piney woods of Grimes County, this Baptist congregation counts among its founders the Rev. George W. Baines—great-grandfather of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the nation's 36th president. The church took root just as Texas joined the Confederacy, part of the dense fabric of rural congregations knitting frontier communities together. Its founding roll carries a thread that would reach the White House a century later.
Plantersville Cemetery
Plantersville, TX
Settlers from the southern states began arriving here in the 1830s, and a post office opened in 1856 as Plantersville, named to honor the local planters. Burials date to at least 1864, and in 1866 landowner and postmaster Peter Walton donated the ground for a community cemetery. Among those interred is Mary Benigna Durst Blake, daughter of a Texas Revolution figure, making the grounds a resting place for pioneers, veterans, and notable Texas families.
Stoneham Methodist Church
Stoneham, TX
Organized in 1885 by a dozen members from the Plantersville church, Stoneham Methodist served its new railroad-era community first in a schoolhouse under circuit-riding ministers, then in a frame sanctuary built in 1893 with its first full-time pastor. The congregation flourished in the 1920s, closed twice as area population declined, and was revived in 1973 to continue serving the area. Its ebb and flow mirrors the fortunes of small rural Texas towns.
The Stoneham Cemetery
Stoneham, TX
Franklin Jarvis Greenwood, who came to Texas in 1829, donated the land for this burial ground, first called 'High Point' after a nearby settlement. Its earliest known graves hold two of his daughters, lost to cholera in 1856, and victims of yellow fever were specially marked to guard against the spread of epidemics. Many buried here descend from Stephen F. Austin's original colonists; the cemetery and town took the name 'Stoneham' after John H. Stoneham gave land for the railroad in 1879.