Mount Zion C. M. E. Church

The church's history on the Panola County TXGenWeb site says the first five members were formerly enslaved: Ben Smith Sr., his wife, "Aunt Susan" Evans and two whose names are unknown. At the 1870 East Texas Methodist Conference in Carthage's Masonic Hall, Bishop Enoch Marvin organized about twenty Black preachers into the Texas Colored Conference; the first pastor was Rev. Odom, a blind traveling minister. Worship began in a brush arbor near Carthage's African American cemetery, with a stump for a pulpit. The congregation became Mt. Zion Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in 1954, and the mortgage burned in 1956.

What the plaque says

Mount Zion C. M. E. Church Methodist Bishop Enoch M. Marvin and five former slaves founded this congregation on November 2, 1870, during a meeting of the East Texas Methodist Conference in Carthage. Early worship services were held in a brush arbor. The members purchased land for their first sanctuary in 1881. Church facilities were enlarged and modified over the years to meet the needs of the growing congregation. Mount Zion C. M. E. Church has served the community with a variety of worship, outreach, and educational programs for more than a century. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tex Ritter Museum and Texas Country Music Hall of Fame — 0.4 mi
  Carthage's country music museum, with Tex Ritter's boots, guitars and saddles in a room styled like a movie theater, and exhibits on other Texas stars, Jim Reeves among them.

More markers nearby

• Carthage Book Club — 0.2 mi
• Jonathan Anderson — 0.2 mi
• Margie Neal — 0.2 mi
• The Panola Watchman — 0.3 mi