Old Pilgrim Church

On February 19, 1848, members voted to build a meetinghouse near Daniel Parker's grave, the Baptist Standard reports, and Parker's son Caleb gave the land on April 17, 1852. About 1857 they raised a one-room log cabin. A larger frame building replaced it in 1890, a one-room brick meetinghouse followed in 1929, and the log replica was built in 1949. The congregation's records for 1833 to 1847 and 1869 to 1897 are held at the Briscoe Center for American History in Austin.

What the plaque says

Old Pilgrim Church Replica, oldest Protestant Church in Texas. As Pilgrim Primitive Baptist Church, constituted July 28, 1833, in Crawford County, Illinois. Under guidance of Elder Daniel Parker, a "moving arm" of established church, 11 members entered Texas, Jan., 1834. First building, 1848. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 10 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.
• Caddo Mounds State Historic Site — 26 mi
  Three earthen mounds of an ancestral Caddo village and ceremonial center on the old El Camino Real, settled about A.D. 800 and still sacred to Caddo people, with a grass house and visitor center.

More markers nearby

• Pilgrim Predestinarian Regular Baptist Church — steps away
• Rev. Daniel Parker — steps away
• Miles Bennett — steps away
• Site of the McClean Massacre — 5.3 mi