Andice Baptist Church

Before this congregation had a building of its own, it shared one. In November 1852 Joshua Stapp gave land on the west side of his farm to trustees for a school, and in 1857 he built a log school-church near a spring on his property. According to the Williamson County Historical Commission, Cumberland Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists all held union services there. The settlement was first called Stapp, after his family, who arrived in 1851. The name Andice came in 1899, when postal officials misread the name a merchant proposed for his son, Audice.

What the plaque says

Andice Baptist Church The Rev. Freeman Smalley, one of the first Baptists in Texas, preached in this area about 1850. This church was organized about 1851, meeting in a log schoolhouse built by Joshua Stapp and others, 1854-76; in a new school building, 1876-94; and in a structure of its own at Pilot Knob, 1894-1936. Successively called "Stapp," "White House," and "Pilot Knob" Baptist Church, the congregation moved to Andice in 1936. It now worships near the original site, where the first pastor, Josiah Andrews, used to hand his pistol on a peg on the hewn, oak-stump Bible stand while he preached. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Williamson County Courthouse — 15 mi
  The fifth Williamson County courthouse, a Beaux Arts building by C. H. Page, rises over a Georgetown square of more than 50 Victorian-era buildings.
• Inner Space Cavern — 16 mi
  A Georgetown cave found in 1963 when highway engineers drilled test holes, holding Pleistocene fossils and 72-degree rooms that visitors reach by an artificial tunnel.
• Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge: Doeskin Ranch — 17 mi
  A free federal refuge north of Lake Travis kept for two songbirds that need old juniper and oak, with trails at the Doeskin Ranch unit near Bertram.
• The Round Rock — 21 mi
  A table-shaped stone in Brushy Creek gave Round Rock its name in 1854; the Chisholm Trail crossed the creek near it, and Old Town stayed behind when the railroad pulled the town east.

More markers nearby

• Williams-Buck Cemetery — 4.9 mi
• Mahomet Cemetery — 5.3 mi
• Mahomet-Sycamore Springs Community — 5.5 mi
• Mount Horeb Lodge — 5.5 mi