Founding Site of First Baptist Church of Goliad

One of the twelve founders, the pastor's son Hamilton B. Hillyer, became one of the first photographers of Texas. Sent out of school in Goliad to work as a cowhand for his health, he learned the daguerreotype from his father, made his own by 1857 and ambrotypes by 1858, and is credited with some of the earliest photographs on paper in Texas. From his Austin gallery he recorded the 1869 Colorado River flood in the city's earliest known stereo photographs, and for many years he made the state's composite photographs of its government. He died at Bowie in 1903.

What the plaque says

Founding Site of First Baptist Church of Goliad A group of twelve Baptists met under an oak tree one block west of the Goliad town square on this site in May 1849. The Rev. John Freeman Hillyer officiated at the meeting, during which the twelve organized the first Baptist church in the area. The charter members included the pastor's wife, Mary, and their children Ann and Hamilton B. Hillyer; Hillyer family slaves Jacob and Eliza; Pryor and Mary Lea; George Brightman and his daughter Emeline Russell; and William and Philania Crow. The group established membership in the Colorado Baptist Association by 1852. After fifty years of meeting in borrowed facilities, the congregation's first permanent home was erected in 1899. The First Baptist church of Goliad continues to serve the area. (1999)

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Bull Durham Advertisement — steps away
• John Mason Brewer — steps away
• Goliad Tornado of 1902 — steps away
• The Hanging Tree — steps away