Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church

The plaque says Shiloh's members founded Center Union Baptist Church across the Bastrop County line in 1878, and that community has its own story of land. Center Union took its name from the corner of northeast Bastrop County where three leagues met. In 1874 the Cunningham family's land there was sold in forty-acre tracts to pay debts, and formerly enslaved people were among the buyers. The Cunningham Cemetery sits on two of those lots. The Texas Freedom Colonies Project records an AME church organized there in 1880 and a Center Union school by 1897.

What the plaque says

Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church Shiloh was one of many communities of displaced, newly-freed slaves that sprang up after the Civil War. Named from the Bible, it was located outside Winchester, near what became known as the Shiloh Branch of the Colorado River. Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church began as prayer meetings by ex-slaves in a brush arbor at that site in 1867, the year of one of the worst yellow fever epidemics in the region. Organized in 1872, Shiloh helped build the structure of the black Baptist church in Texas. In 1874, it was one of 16 churches to form the La Grange Baptist District Association (LGA). The LGA soon joined the fledgling statewide Baptist Missionary and Education Convention. Shiloh members founded Center Union Baptist Church in Bastrop County in 1878. Shiloh Baptist bought 3.2 acres in 1894 that ran from N. Raymond road to near Shiloh Cemetery. In 1896, Shiloh AME, later Shiloh United Methodist, was built across FM 153 next to Cokesbury (Coaxberry) School. For 100 years, they worshipped in each other's churches on alternating Sundays and served as venues for community events. They even ordered their church bells together in the 1890s. In 1914, Shiloh Baptist traded its west 2 acres for 1.25 acres south to FM 153. In 1916, the church burned; a new one was built in 1917 nearer to FM 153. Cokesbury (1890-1948) held a class here in the 1936-37 school year. The church was remodeled in 1983, adding a dining hall in back. From 1981-2011, Shiloh Baptist served as Shiloh Cemetery's sole steward. Noted pastors are Rev. Alexander L. Boone and Rev. Anderson Denman. Shiloh Baptist Church is the only surviving entity in Winchester that carries forward the history of its black community. (2009)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 7.6 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.
• Monument Hill and Kreische Brewery State Historic Sites — 11 mi
  A shared tomb on the Colorado River bluff for the men of the Dawson fight and the black bean lottery, beside the ruins of a German stonemason's spring-fed brewery.
• St. John the Baptist Catholic Church (Ammannsville) — 18 mi
  A wooden Carpenter Gothic church built in 1919 after storm and fire took two before it, its dusty-rose interior painted by an artist whose name was lost for decades.
• Bastrop State Park — 18 mi
  The westernmost loblolly pines in the United States, cut off from the East Texas forest by a hundred miles of post oak, burned almost entirely in 2011 and growing back.

More markers nearby

• Winchester Cemetery — steps away
• St. Peter Lutheran Church and Prairie Valley Cemetery — 4.2 mi
• Joseph C. Robinson — 5.2 mi
• Site of Wood's Fort — 5.7 mi