Antioch Primitive Baptist Church

On November 8, 1844, delegates met with the Antioch church in Jasper County to organize the Louisiana and Texas Regular Predestinarian Baptist Association. Researcher R. L. Vaughn, working from The Primitive Baptist of 1845, reports five churches represented, Elder Levi A. Durham as moderator and Leroy G. McGaughey as clerk. The new association's constitution declared non-fellowship with missionary societies, Sunday school unions and temperance societies. Durham died on October 7, 1846, a few days after the association's meeting that year, according to Alfred Lyons's letter to the same paper.

What the plaque says

Antioch Primitive Baptist Church Organized 1841 in the home of John and Mary Richardson. Nancy Laird, James and John Richardson, and Elders Levi A. Durham, Edward Parsons, and Josiah Wheat acted as Presbytery. Charter members: Elijah Allen, Mary Bolin, Martha Crockett, Jeremiah Day, Hilliard and Sarah Durdin, Olive Hart, Joseph and Nancy Laird; Benjamin, Eliza, James, John, Mary (1), Mary (2), Rebecca and Robert Richardson. Services have been held here regularly since first house of worship (made of logs) was built at this site in 1842. Antioch Cemetery was established 1850. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Village Creek State Park — 18 mi
  A 2,466-acre state park on one of the few free-flowing creeks in Texas, with a launch for the Village Creek Paddling Trail, boat rentals and sandy-upland trails in the Big Thicket.
• Big Thicket National Preserve — 23 mi
  Start at the Kountze visitor center, where rangers sort the preserve's scattered units for you, and learn why Congress made this 1974 string of pearls the country's first national preserve.

More markers nearby

• Thomas Holmes — 3.1 mi
• Site of Former Settlement of Richardson's Bluff — 10.0 mi
• Harvey Houses of Silsbee — 14 mi
• Early Kirbyville Schools — 14 mi