Shiloh Baptist Church

Former slaves formed the Shiloh community after the Civil War, and Gideon Christian, a South Carolinian who came to the area in the 1850s with his family and enslaved people, later deeded parcels of his land to them, according to Texas Escapes. It says he owned 32 enslaved people. Local tradition names Butcher Christian as the donor of the church's three acres. The adjoining cemetery lists about 165 names, among them Rev. R. B. Barnes (1861-1904) and Rev. George Boyd (1880-1952), and about 28 graves carry military markers, mostly from World War II.

What the plaque says

Shiloh Baptist Church According to local tradition former slave Butcher Christian, and noted post-Civil War church organizer the Rev. John Baptist established this church in 1871. Services began in a log sanctuary located on 3 acres donated by Butcher Christian. A school for African Americans operated there until about the 1890s. An adjacent cemetery, with marked graves dating to 1882, is still active. revenues from oil discovered on church land were used to build a new sanctuary here in 1936. Shiloh Baptist serves the community with a variety of programs. (1993)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• East Texas Oil Museum — 13 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.
• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 23 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• Tyler State Park — 25 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 27 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.

More markers nearby

• Site of Shiloh School — steps away
• Upshur County Discovery Well — 1.5 mi
• White Oak Independent School District — 2.9 mi
• Gregg County Discovery Oil Well, F. K. Lathrop A-1, Aransas Fuel Oil Co. — 3.0 mi