Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church

Annie Warren Rugeley and Edward Rugeley sold the church its land on December 3, 1885, from the old Warren plantation on Caney Creek. The sanctuary went up under Rev. Anthony Morton, also recorded as Martin, who was born in 1825; the Berean church marker names a Rev. Anthony Martin as its first pastor in 1896. The school had 87 pupils on the 1894 and 1895 census and 49 in 1904. By 1917 it was one of at least nine Black schools in its district, each teaching four grades.

What the plaque says

Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church Tradition holds that slaves from nearby plantations once gathered together in worship in the Lower Caney Creek area. These men and women continued their services after the close of the Civil War and by 1885 acquired land at this site. Under the Rev. Anthony Morton (Martin), church members built a sanctuary here. For the next several decades, the building served as a place of worship, as well as a community school until circa 1930. Although area population declined during the 20th century, the congregation remains a symbol of the community's religious history. Its sanctuary and cemetery are visible links to generations of area families. (2005)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 9.9 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 18 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.

More markers nearby

• Lukefahr School Community — 3.1 mi
• First Berean Missionary Baptist Church — 3.1 mi
• Site of Caney Post Office — 3.3 mi
• Vine Grove Christian Church — 3.4 mi