Old Baptist Church

Before the Civil War this congregation held separate services for the enslaved people of its members. William Carey Crane, Baylor's president and the church's pastor, wrote in his diary on February 14, 1864, that he preached to a large congregation in the morning and to the Black worshippers in the afternoon. Membership here peaked at 289 in 1870, then sank, and by 1951 only twenty remained. The congregation deeded its property to the Baptist General Convention of Texas while keeping the right to use it. After a fire in 1872 the pews that Sam Houston used were saved.

What the plaque says

Old Baptist Church Organized in 1839. Here Sam Houston was converted and baptised in Rocky Creek in 1854. The present building was erected in 1872

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 0.5 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 11 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 11 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.
• Navasota — 16 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.

More markers nearby

• Margaret M. Lea Houston — steps away
• The Nancy Lea Bell — steps away
• Site of Independence School — steps away
• Site of Mustering of a Unit of Hood's Texas Brigade, C.S.A. — steps away