First Baptist Church of Ladonia

Church history from Ladonia's Baptists describes a building before there was a congregation. In 1858 the Sister Grove Association chose Ladonia for a school because a church-school building already stood, and Robert Cooke Buckner, pastor in Paris, led the people to put up a two-story frame building in 1858 and 1859 with lumber hauled by ox and horse wagons from Jefferson. In October 1865 Hyman Cobb built pews at a dollar for a long one and fifty cents for a short one. The Baptist Convention of Eastern Texas met here in June 1867.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Ladonia Ladonia's Baptists trace their history to 1859, when the Rev. Robert Cooke Buckner began traveling from Paris, Texas to Ladonia to preach monthly services. On January 8, 1860 the congregation formally organized as the First Baptist Church. The Rev. A. J. Moffat became the first pastor. Before the congregation built its first church building in 1877, services were held in a combination church/schoolhouse, where worshipers used split logs for seats for several years. The congregation became actively involved in both Baptist affairs and missionary endeavors early in its development. In 1867, Ladonia was the site of the Baptist convention of eastern Texas, though attendance was somewhat low due to a yellow fever outbreak. However, the next year Ladonia continued hosting other Baptist events and participating in local, county, and regional association meetings. As early as 1869, women's groups were active in local missionary programs, and at the turn of the century the congregation as a whole began to support a nearby orphanage as well as foreign missions. Throughout its history, the First Baptist Church of Ladonia has played an important role in the religious life of this community. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cooper Lake State Park — 17 mi
  Two units on Jim Chapman Lake, a Corps reservoir proposed in the late 1930s, stalled by a lawsuit until 1984 and dedicated in 1991, with a 10.5-mile equestrian trail and wildlife land around it.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 19 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 22 mi
  A Greenville museum of Hunt County's military heroes, including Audie Murphy, and of cotton, which keeps the engine of what it says was the world's largest inland cotton compress.
• Evergreen Cemetery — 27 mi
  Paris's town cemetery since 1866, with a carved-stone gallery that includes the Babcock monument in cowboy boots, and the grave of the three-year-old whose death led to the 1893 lynching of Henry Smith.

More markers nearby

• Bethel Lodge No. 134 A. F. & A. M. — 0.2 mi
• Ladonia Cemetery — 0.3 mi
• Ladonia — 0.3 mi
• Little Bethel Baptist Church — 0.8 mi