Union Baptist Church
Carrollton, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Earliest Baptist church in Dallas County; organized in a pioneer cabin, May 10, 1846, under leadership of the Rev. David Myers (1797 -1853). Charter members were Franklin Bowles, J. B. and Margaret Ann Lee, Letticia (Mrs. David) Myers, and John Miller Myers. Sarah and Thomas Keenan and Narcissus Wilburn joined soon afterward. The Baptists, aided by other settlers, in 1847 built their first meeting house on land given by Thomas and Sarah Keenan, near Keenan Cemetery (2.4 mi SSW), in present Farmers Branch. The Rev. David Myers, the original pastor, served until his death in 1853. Within a generation, Union Church was relocated in Carrollton, and by 1871 was occupying its third site. In May 1896, at a 3-day semicentennial celebration, a fourth sanctuary was dedicated on A. W. Perry land. The Perry Cemetery (1.3 mi. NNW) marks that site. As town grew toward the railroads, the church had moved by 1911 to Belt Line Road at Myers Street. In time it became the College Avenue Baptist Church. In 1961 present facilities were established, and the name was changed to Highland Baptist Church. From the beginning, Union Church had an important role in community life, with influence not only in sacred but also in secular affairs.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in a pioneer cabin on May 10, 1846 — the very year Texas joined the Union — Union Baptist Church was the earliest Baptist congregation in Dallas County. A handful of settler families gathered under the Rev. David Myers, who served until his death in 1853, and built their first meeting house on land donated by Thomas and Sarah Keenan. Over the following decades the congregation followed the growing settlements, moving through several sanctuaries before becoming today's Highland Baptist Church.
Why it matters
Frontier churches like this were often the first institutions on the ground, anchoring scattered settlers into communities that would become North Texas towns.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the spring of 1846, North Texas was a frontier in every sense. Texas had only just entered the United States, and the land along the Trinity River and its tributaries was being settled by families who came in wagons, built log cabins and began breaking prairie for farms. Many came to the area through the Peters Colony land grants, which drew settlers into North Texas in the 1840s.
Dallas County itself was created in 1846, the same year this congregation formed. There were no towns of any size yet. Settlers lived on scattered farms, and community life depended on whatever institutions they built for themselves.
On a frontier like that, churches often came first. Frontier congregations often met in homes until they could build a meeting house, and Baptist and Methodist preachers were among the most active organizers of settler life across the American West and South.
People & events
On May 10, 1846, a small group of settlers gathered in a pioneer cabin and organized what the marker calls the earliest Baptist church in Dallas County. Their leader was the Rev. David Myers. The charter members were Franklin Bowles, J. B. and Margaret Ann Lee, Letticia Myers and John Miller Myers. Sarah and Thomas Keenan and Narcissus Wilburn joined soon afterward.
Within a year the congregation, helped by other settlers, built its first meeting house in 1847 on land given by Thomas and Sarah Keenan, near what is now Keenan Cemetery in present-day Farmers Branch. The gift of land and the shared work on the building show how church-building drew a whole settlement together. David Myers served as pastor until his death in 1853.
The congregation kept moving with its people. Within a generation it had relocated to Carrollton, and by 1871 it was on its third site. In May 1896 it held a three-day celebration of its fiftieth anniversary and dedicated a fourth sanctuary on land belonging to A. W. Perry, a site now marked by Perry Cemetery. As the town grew toward the railroads, the church moved again, reaching Belt Line Road at Myers Street by 1911. It later became the College Avenue Baptist Church, and in 1961 it settled into new facilities under the name Highland Baptist Church.
Its place in the American story
Union Baptist Church shows how American frontier communities came together. Before there were courthouses, schools or town governments, there were congregations: groups of families who met in cabins, pooled their labor and built the first public spaces on the land. The marker notes that this church shaped secular as well as sacred life, which was common for frontier churches that served as meeting halls, social centers and moral anchors.
Its wanderings tell a larger story too. The congregation followed its members from cabin to meeting house, from farmland to town, and finally toward the railroad, the force that remade American settlement in the late nineteenth century. Across the country, communities shifted to be near the tracks, and churches, stores and homes moved with them.
Today the Dallas area is one of the largest metropolitan regions in the nation. That a congregation founded in a log cabin months after Texas statehood has lasted, under new names and in new buildings, all the way into the modern city is a striking thread of continuity in a landscape that has changed almost beyond recognition.
If you visit
This marker is a doorway into layered history. The congregation's story is spread across several places nearby: Keenan Cemetery to the south-southwest, near the first meeting house, and Perry Cemetery to the north-northwest, which marks the 1896 sanctuary site. Visiting one or both turns a single stop into a small pilgrimage through North Texas's frontier past.
As you stand here, imagine the suburban landscape of today's Carrollton and Farmers Branch as open prairie dotted with log cabins. The contrast between the frontier the marker describes and the busy region around you is part of what makes the site so striking.
It's an easy stop for anyone exploring the northern Dallas suburbs, and a good companion to other pioneer-era sites in the area. If you visit the cemeteries, remember that they are burial grounds and treat them with care.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Rev. David Myers
- · Thomas Keenan
- · Sarah Keenan
Related events
- · Organization of Union Baptist Church (1846)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Perry Cemetery
Carrollton, TX
When the Texas prairie town of Carrollton was still finding its footing, the death of Sarah Huffman Perry in 1896 gave the young community its first true burying ground. The next year her husband, A. W. Perry, deeded the land beside the Union Baptist Church, and scattered graves from private plots were gathered here to rest together. Most of its 482 graves belong to the pioneer families who broke this ground in North Texas.
Alex W. and Sarah Perry Homestead
Carrollton, TX
In 1844 Alexander Wilson Perry and his wife Sarah left Illinois to join the Peters Colony, buying this North Texas land and raising a simple frame house by the late 1850s. The Perrys became civic pillars, donating ground for a church, a cemetery, a school, and the railroad. Their son later reused the old home's lumber and stone to build the surviving residence, which his family gave to Carrollton as a museum and park in 1975.
Warner Cemetery
Carrollton, TX
In 1852, Robert and Sarah Dean Warner emigrated from Ireland to Texas, joining the Peters Colony and establishing a farm in this area. The family graveyard began with the 1873 death of Robert Warner, Jr., and holds ten marked graves—most of them Warner kin—along with at least one unmarked burial. The Warners and their descendants went on to become leaders in the Carrollton community.
First Methodist Society, Dallas County's
Farmers Branch, TX
When Isaac Blackman Webb moved his family from Missouri into the Peters Colony in the winter of 1843–44, he sent for a missionary, and in March 1844 the first known Methodist minister to visit the colony preached in a nearby log cabin. A society formed in 1845, and by 1846 an 18-by-18-foot log cabin rose on Webb's land as the colony's first church—doubling as schoolhouse, meeting hall, and post office. The congregation, now Webb Chapel United Methodist Church, claims continuous services since 1845.