Union Hill Missionary Baptist Church
Bastrop, Bastrop County, Texas
Marker Inscription
According to local tradition this site was used by area slaves for gathering purposes. Silvie Story, William Hill, Martha Young, Paulie Johnson, Grant McBride, and Martha J. Hill organized this church in 1864 with the help of the Rev. Joshua Brice. Early baptisms took place in the Colorado River. By 1900 the congregation consisted of about 20 members. The C. M. Rogers family deeded 9 acres to the church in the early 1900s. An educational facility was built in 1976 and a new sanctuary in 1988. The congregation continues to provide worship and educational services for the community. (1995)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Local tradition holds that enslaved people gathered at this site even before freedom, and in 1864 — as the Civil War drew to its close — a small group organized this Baptist church with the help of Rev. Joshua Brice, baptizing new members in the Colorado River. By 1900 the congregation numbered about twenty, and a family deeded it nine acres in the early 1900s. New buildings in 1976 and 1988 carried its worship and schooling into the present.
Why it matters
Founded in the last year of slavery, the church marks the very moment freedpeople began building the independent Black congregations that would anchor their communities for generations.
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Related people
- · Joshua Brice
- · Silvie Story
- · William Hill
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mt. Olive Baptist Church
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Freed from slavery only a decade earlier, African American citizens of Bastrop organized Mt. Olive Baptist Church in 1874, first gathering under a brush arbor before building a sanctuary with a split cedar-log pew. The congregation doubled as a school: Elm Grove School shared the frame building from 1897, enrolling nearly ninety pupils. In 1909 the church bought three acres for a new sanctuary and cemetery, adding a dedicated classroom in 1912, and classes continued there until consolidation with Bastrop in 1957.
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