Blanconia (Old N2) Church

Duane's take

Now, the way the marker tells it, here's the story of Blanconia, the Old N2 Church, out in Bee County. The first Baptist church in Refugio County was organized on April 22, 1855. They met in the Doughty Schoolhouse, near Refugio, which is just the kind of humble beginning a good story deserves.

No walls of their own, no steeple pointing at the sky. Just folks gathering where they could. Then came 1865, and they finally raised their first sanctuary.

Five miles west of that spot, they built it. And here's where the story picks up a little color: they named that church for a cattle brand. Not a saint, not a scripture verse, a cattle brand.

Specifically, the brand belonging to a member and benefactor by the name of N. R. McDaniel.

His brand was the N2, and so that's what they called it. The N2 Church. Out on the South Texas range, where a man's brand was his word and his name both at once, that kind of honor meant something.

The congregation kept growing, kept gathering, and by 1873 the Blanco Baptist Association itself was organized right there at the N2 Church. That is not a small thing. That is a church becoming the mother of churches.

Then in 1888 the fellowship picked up and moved to Blanconia, and three years later, in 1891, they built the first sanctuary on this very site. One of the oldest Baptist congregations in all of South Texas, Blanconia Church has served as a nucleus for the growth of area churches and has ordained several pastors over the years. Started in a schoolhouse, named for a cattle brand, and it grew into the root system of a whole region's faith.

That N2 brand turned out to stand for something a good deal more than cattle.

What the marker says

The first Baptist church in Refugio County was organized on April 22, 1855, and met in the Doughty Schoolhouse near Refugio. In 1865, the first sanctuary was erected (5 mi.W) and named for the cattle brand of member and benefactor N. R. McDaniel. the Blanco Baptist Association was organized at the "N2" Church in 1873. In 1888 the fellowship moved to Blanconia where the first sanctuary on this site was built in 1891. One of the oldest Baptist churches in South Texas, Blanconia Church served as a nucleus for growth of area churches and has ordained several pastors. (1985)