First Baptist Church of Harper

Baptists were preaching in Texas long before religious freedom came. Catholicism was the established religion until March 1834, yet by the summer of 1820 Joseph L. Bays, a friend of Moses Austin, preached regularly; arrested in 1823, he escaped on the way to trial in San Antonio. Freeman Smalley preached near Pecan Point, and in 1825 Thomas Hanks gave the first Baptist sermon west of the Brazos. Thomas J. Pilgrim started the first Baptist Sunday school in 1828. Providence Church, founded south of Bastrop in March 1834, was the first Baptist congregation formed in Texas.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Harper Organized in 1887 with nine members, the First Baptist Church congregation initially met in the local school building and a brush arbor. A wooden sanctuary and parsonage were built in 1897. The congregation has been involved in community activities and mission work for many years. Harper High school held classes in the church building in 1921 and 1941-42. A native stone structure was erected in 1944, consisting of a sanctuary and Sunday School rooms. A fellowship hall annex was added in 1971. This church has been part of Harper history for over one hundred years. (1987)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Schreiner Mansion — 19 mi
  The 1879 downtown home of Charles Schreiner, the Alsatian-born merchant, banker and rancher whose store and mohair trade built Kerrville.
• Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve — 19 mi
  A limestone cave on the James River where about four million Mexican free-tailed bats raise their young each summer, kept open to visitors by a family's gift.
• Vereins Kirche and Main Street — 22 mi
  The octagonal Society Church on Fredericksburg's market square, rebuilt in stone in the 1930s, beside a main street laid out like a Rhine village.
• National Museum of the Pacific War — 22 mi
  A museum of the war in the Pacific in Chester Nimitz's hometown, dedicated at his request to the two million who served with him, with a garden given by Japan.

More markers nearby

• Harper Independent School District — steps away
• Site of the McDonald Massacre — 0.4 mi
• St. Anthony Catholic Parish — 0.8 mi
• St. James Lutheran Church — 0.9 mi