Primitive Baptist Church of Wells
Wells, Cherokee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Alabama native Francis Marion Sessions is credited with the organization of the Primitive Baptist Church of Wells. Prior to his 1890 arrival in the town, Primitive Baptists traveled to Angelina County to worship in the Old Sand Hill Primitive Baptist Church. Although a formal organization date for the Wells church is unrecorded, Sessions and others began meeting in their homes and in the public schoolhouse and in 1918 purchased this school building and property for use as a permanent place of worship. Early leaders in the church included members of the Childers, Wilson and McAdams families. Often in attendance at the monthly services were residents of Angelina, Nacogdoches and Trinity counties. Hymns were sung in special arrangements without the accompaniment of musical instruments, a tradition in rural America known as sacred harp singing. The Old School Primitive Baptist Church, as it came to be known, often served as a gathering place for area harp singers. Sessions' death in 1930 was followed by that of other older members of the church, and the congregation eventually ceased to meet. Although the Primitive Baptist Church no longer exists in Wells, the church building still stands as a reminder of its history.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Alabama native Francis Marion Sessions organized this Primitive Baptist congregation after arriving in Wells in 1890, when local believers had been traveling to Angelina County to worship. Meeting first in homes and the schoolhouse, they bought a school building in 1918 for a permanent church. Known as the Old School Primitive Baptist Church, it became a gathering place for the unaccompanied sacred harp singing tradition, until the deaths of Sessions and its elder members brought the congregation to a close.
Why it matters
The church preserves the story of rural sacred harp singing and the tight-knit faith communities that shaped cultural life across the piney-woods South.
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Related people
- · Francis Marion Sessions
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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