Site of Organization of the First Baptist Church of Mart
Mart, McLennan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In Jan. 1878, local Baptists met at H. J.Breland's home to hear the Rev. C.C. Hardwick preach. Three months later, on April 28, 1878, eighteen Baptists gathered under a large elm tree at this site to organize the first church in the community of Willow Springs, later renamed Mart. The Rev. T.D. Suttle was the first pastor. Near the tree, the congregation built a frame church and established a burial ground, which became Mart City Cemetery. The church moved from this site in 1893. (1977)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In early 1878, Baptists in the tiny community of Willow Springs, Texas, first gathered in a private home to hear a visiting preacher, and that April eighteen of them met beneath a large elm tree to formally organize their congregation. They raised a frame church beside the tree and opened a burial ground that grew into Mart City Cemetery. The town itself was later renamed Mart, and the church moved on in 1893, but this spot marks where the community's spiritual life began.
Why it matters
Frontier churches like this one were often the first institutions a Texas settlement built, anchoring scattered farm families into a town with a shared identity and a place to bury their dead.
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Related people
- · Rev. C.C. Hardwick
- · Rev. T.D. Suttle
- · H.J. Breland
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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The Battle community grew up around 1880 on land tied to Nicholas W. Battle, and by the 1890s it had a school, post office, businesses, homes, and churches. A cemetery was laid out on ground acquired from the McLennan family, its earliest documented grave dating to 1888. After the International and Great Northern Railroad bypassed the town around 1901, Battle went into decline, leaving the cemetery as a memorial to the pioneers who settled here.
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This McLennan County burial ground began as land bought in 1880 by trustees of the Lone Oak School for a church and school. It was pressed into use as a cemetery by September 1881, when the infant son of the Goodman family was laid to rest here. Confederate veterans and a lone Union veteran of the Civil War also lie among the pioneer dead.
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