Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church

Shiloh's members lived through the 1887 troubles. White men in the Sargent neighborhood refused to work on roads supervised by a Black county commissioner, and a Black constable, Jerry Matthews, sent to summon them, was killed. About eighty-five armed white men then gathered at Sargent from Matagorda, Wharton, Brazoria and Fort Bend counties and besieged the Vann settlement, where Oliver Sheppard, leader of the Black side, was cornered in a cabin. He escaped. Several other Black residents were killed. Members of Shiloh went on to organize Berean Baptist Church at Vann.

What the plaque says

Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church Following Emancipation in 1865, freedmen and women established the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church near Caney Creek in 1866. Instrumental in the church formation were the Reverend Dennis Grey (1814-1879), secretary John Alexander Sidney (1842-1928) and many charter members. The first church building was erected on land from the A.C. Buckner League purchased by the Reverend Mr. Gray and donated to the church. The building also served as a community school with an enrollment of about 100 pupils. A cemetery was established in the 1870s near the church and contains the graves of church and community members. A storm in 1909 destroyed the original church building, and a second church was constructed. A bell dating from 1856 given to the church by the community was hung in the belfry of the new church. In 1970 a new sanctuary was constructed on land donated by the Van Vleck School district. Auxiliary facilities were added as the congregation grew. Continuing a long history of service and community outreach, the church was a site of refuge during Hurricane Carla in 1961. The church remains an integral part of the area as it has for more than 130 years. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 6.0 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 16 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 26 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.

More markers nearby

• First Berean Missionary Baptist Church — 3.7 mi
• Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church — 5.0 mi
• St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church — 5.3 mi
• Cedar Lake Salt Works — 5.7 mi