First Baptist Church of Corsicana

The plaque credits the Rev. Noah Turner Byars with the church's start, and the Handbook of Texas fills in the man. Born in South Carolina in 1808, he ran a gunsmith and blacksmith shop at Washington-on-the-Brazos and served the Texas army as armorer and blacksmith. Ordained in 1841, he became the Texas Baptist Convention's first missionary in 1848, with a field covering about thirty present-day counties. He helped found five associations and more than sixty churches, taught that the church should lead in education, and died in Brownwood in 1888.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Corsicana Originally known as the United Baptist Church, this fellowship was established through the leadership of the Rev. Noah Turner Byars, a pioneer preacher and founder of the Trinity River Baptist Association. The church organizational meeting was conducted in 1848 with early Texas Baptist leaders Judge R. E. B. Baylor and the Rev. Z. N. Morrell presiding. Worship services were first held in a community building shared with the local Presbyterian and Methodist congregations. In 1865, during the pastorate of the Rev. S. G. Mullins, the members moved to a vacant store at the corner of Third Avenue and Eleventh Street, where they worshiped for ten years. Sanctuaries were constructed at two other sites before the church moved to this location in 1901. An educational building, added later, was named for an early member and benefactor, Kate Stiteler McKie. Prominent pastors here have included the Rev. W. B. Bagby, first Southern Baptist missionary to Brazil, and the Rev. J. Howard Williams, later president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Active in mission work, the church has served as sponsor for four area congregations: Memorial, Calvary, Northside, and Iglesia Bautista Calvario. (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroleum Industry Park — 0.3 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 20 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 30 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.

More markers nearby

• Birthsite of Beauford H. Jester — steps away
• Samuel Wistar Johnson, M. D. — steps away
• Corsicana Public Library — steps away
• Collin Street Bakery — steps away