Bethlehem Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. This is the story of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Terrell, Kaufman County; and friend, it is a story worth telling slow. It starts in 1877, before there were walls, before there was a roof, before there was anything but faith and the open Texas sky.

A group of worshipers gathered under a brush arbor (just branches and belief) led by a missionary named A. R. Griggs.

Now that is a beginning. That is the kind of beginning that doesn't ask for much except conviction. From that humble shade came the oldest Black Baptist congregation still standing in Terrell.

With the Reverend P. W. Upshaw serving as the first pastor, those church members didn't wait around.

They erected a sanctuary (a real, built-by-hand sanctuary) on what is now the 400 block of East Grove Street. Then in 1889, the building was moved. Picked up and relocated to the corner of South Virginia and Cottage streets.

A new facility went up in the early 1900s, and that one was relocated to this very site in 1929. This congregation had moved before. They knew how to carry what mattered.

But in 1939, fire took the building. Just like that: gone. You'd think a story like that might end there.

It didn't. The congregation raised a new structure in 1940. One year.

They had been meeting under brush and open sky before. They knew how to begin again.

What the marker says

The oldest black Baptist congregation extant in Terrell, this church traces its history to 1877, when a group of worshipers led by missionary A. R. Griggs met under a brush arbor. With the Rev. P. W. Upshaw serving as first pastor, church members erected a sanctuary at what is now the 400 block of East Grove Street. The building was moved to the corner of S. Virginia and Cottage streets in 1889. A new facility, built in the early 1900s, was relocated to this site in 1929. It was destroyed in a 1939 fire and replaced by a new structure in 1940. (1989)