Shiloh Baptist Church
Mexia vicinity, Limestone County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On October 21, 1881, 15 residents of several neighboring communities in this part of Limestone County met to organize a Baptist church. The Rev. G. L. Jennings served as first pastor. For 14 years, the congregation met for worship in the Shiloh schoolhouse and participated in a Union Sunday School with the local Methodist church. In January 1896, the members of Shiloh Baptist Church worshiped for the first time in their own sanctuary. The congregation completed a new building in 1927 to replace the original. For more than 100 years, Shiloh Baptist Church has shared in the religious and cultural heritage of this rural area. (2001)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On a fall day in 1881, fifteen neighbors from surrounding communities gathered to organize a Baptist church in rural Limestone County, with the Rev. G. L. Jennings as first pastor. For fourteen years they worshiped in the Shiloh schoolhouse and shared a Union Sunday School with local Methodists before dedicating their own sanctuary in 1896. A new building followed in 1927, and the congregation has anchored the area's religious life for well over a century.
Why it matters
The church tells the familiar story of how scattered farm families pooled their faith and labor to build lasting rural institutions in post–Civil War Texas.
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Related people
- · G. L. Jennings
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Plummer Cemetery
Groesbeck, TX
L. T. M. Plummer and his wife Rachel, born a Parker, reached this part of Limestone County in 1834 and received a Mexican land grant of over 3,000 acres. In the 1836 raid on Fort Parker, Rachel, her son James, and her cousin Cynthia Ann Parker were taken captive by Comanches; Rachel was ransomed in 1838 but died within a year, as did her infant son Wilson. Grieving, L. T. M. set aside an acre as a family burial ground, where more than a hundred Plummer descendants now rest.
Old Springfield
Mexia, TX
Founded in 1838 around a spring donated by Moses Herrin, Old Springfield grew into the seat of newly formed Limestone County by 1846, complete with a two-story brick courthouse, a Methodist district that seeded the Northwest Texas Conference, and a short-lived college. The town's fortunes turned when the Houston & Texas Central Railroad passed it by in 1870, and two devastating fires in 1873 — one consuming the courthouse — hastened its end as buildings were carted off and the county seat moved to Groesbeck. Today only the old cemetery and Springfield Lake, inside Fort Parker State Park, carry the name of what was once the county's leading town.
Old Springfield Cemetery
Mexia, TX
Set aside as a ten-acre burial ground when Moses Herrin platted Springfield in January 1838, this cemetery served the once-thriving Limestone County seat and the surrounding frontier. Its oldest legible stone dates to 1849, and among those laid to rest are veterans of the Texas War for Independence, the Mexican War, and other conflicts, along with travelers who died far from home — including a New Yorker recorded as slain in 1854 violence over his gold. Long after the railroad bypassed Springfield in 1870 and fire hastened its decline, descendants kept returning to bury their dead beside pioneer forebears.
Town Named for Gen. Jose Antonio Mexia
Mexia, TX
Gen. José Antonio Mexía was a Mexican military officer and promoter of Texas colonization who served in his country's legation to the United States and its senate in the early 1830s. Though he first backed Santa Anna, he turned against the general when he seized dictatorial power, fleeing to Texas in 1834 and leading expeditions against him until he was captured and executed by Santa Anna's order in 1839. His son and daughter later settled the family's Limestone County land and donated the site for the town that bears his name in 1871.