Antioch Church of Christ

Duane's take

The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of Antioch Church of Christ in San Augustine County. William P. Defee was a medical doctor, which is already an interesting place to start, because the man arrived in Texas in 1833 and pretty soon decided that healing bodies wasn't the only work worth doing.

He began preaching in homes. No building, no congregation, just a doctor making his rounds and somewhere along the way turning a front room into a sanctuary. By 1836, that informal ministry had grown into something more deliberate.

Defee began this congregation, the one that would become Antioch Church of Christ. They met in a dirt-floored log building on Rhoddy Anthony's property. Dirt floors and log walls, which tells you something about what devotion looked like on the Texas frontier.

Now, the name they chose, Antioch, that's not an arbitrary word. The marker is plain about it: the name was chosen because the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. That's the reason the congregation carries that name.

And Rhoddy Anthony, the man whose property sheltered those early gatherings, was selected elder. He served in that role for fifty years. Fifty years.

Let that settle. About 1870, a new sanctuary was built, this time on land belonging to Stephen Passmore. The building did more than hold Sunday services.

It served as a schoolhouse and a community meeting place, the kind of structure a community leans on for more than one kind of need. The building you'd be looking at today was completed in 1938, which means this congregation, born in a dirt-floored log cabin on Rhoddy Anthony's land, was still here, still building, more than a hundred years after William P. Defee first started preaching in somebody's home.

What the marker says

William P. Defee, a medical doctor, arrived in Texas in 1833 and began preaching in homes. In 1836 he began this congregation. They met in a dirt-floored, log building on Rhoddy Anthony's property. The name "Antioch" was chosen because the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. Anthony was selected elder and served for 50 years. About 1870 a new sanctuary was built on this land belonging to Stephen Passmore. The building served as a schoolhouse and community meeting place. This structure was completed in 1938.