Bethel Baptist Church

Black Bay City's North-end had no church until the Andersons opened their home. After the congregation organized in 1905, trustees bought two lots in D. P. Moore's First Addition for $30 in 1906 and moved a small frame building onto them. From 1945 to 1948 the sanctuary doubled as a classroom: overcrowding at Hilliard High School sent a second-grade class to Bethel, where children used the pews as desks and the building had a wood heater and an outhouse. Harris Anderson left in 1909 over a disagreement and helped found Enterprise Baptist Church, while Maria and the children stayed.

What the plaque says

Bethel Baptist Church Lacking church facilities in their "North-end" African American neighborhood, Harris and Maria Anderson began to hold lay services in their home about 1904. They built a brush arbor and in 1905 organized the Bethel Baptist Church with the Rev. Joe Wren as its first pastor. The church met in a building relocated to this site in 1906. The congregation erected its first sanctuary here in 1910. It was eventually razed and replaced with a brick church building in 1954. The church has maintained a tradition of pride in its facilities and continues to serve the community. (1993)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 20 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 23 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.

More markers nearby

• Bay City Post Office — 0.7 mi
• Cedarvale Cemetery — 0.7 mi
• Ira Ingram, First Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives — 0.7 mi
• Matagorda County — 0.7 mi