First Baptist Church of Trenton

Trenton's Baptists first worshiped in the Burns school house, and the building outlived the congregation's use of it in an unlikely way. When the church moved into town in 1897, it sold the schoolhouse to Y. B. Reed, who moved it just east of Trenton. The roof was taken off and a barn built around it, and it stood that way on John Alexander's property when the church wrote its history. Funds for the new building came from members of both sexes riding horseback across the county. Pastor Jno. W. Connelly, from 1886, performed 428 weddings.

What the plaque says

First Baptist Church of Trenton On January 7, 1877, Trenton Baptists began worshiping in the Burns school house. The church body organized as Smyrna Baptist Church of Christ, with Martin W. Gentry as the first pastor. In 1886, the church called their second pastor in Jno. William Connelly. The church entered into fellowship with the Sister Grove Association in 1878 until the Fannin County Baptist Association formed in 1889. In 1897, under the leadership of Rev. J. M. Harder, the church built a frame building on the present site. A fire in November 1953 completely destroyed the sanctuary. The congregation met in the high school auditorium until a new church was completed in July 1954. The church continues to support global missions and community needs. (2013)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 12 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.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 25 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 25 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 26 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.

More markers nearby

• First Methodist Church of Trenton — steps away
• First National Bank of Trenton — steps away
• Burns Cemetery — 1.0 mi
• East Shady Grove Baptist Church — 4.4 mi