Enon Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Upshur County, there's a church with a story that goes back to the very spring of 1848. May the thirteenth, to be precise.

Now that's not a vague sometime-in-the-old-days date. That is a Tuesday with a name on it. And on that Tuesday, a small gathering of people came together inside the home of a man named M.

S. Long, who wasn't just the host. He was a member, one of the charter members, part of the founding core of what would become Enon Baptist Church.

Think about that for a second. The church was organized inside the walls of one of its own congregation. That's not a coincidence, that's a community.

Alongside M. S. Long that day stood D.

M. and J. D. J. and Lucinda Davis.

S. I. and Sarah Knight were there too. And Martha Mattocks.

Seven souls putting their names to something that would outlast all of them by a long, long stretch. The first pastor called to lead this new congregation was J. M.

Griffin. And when it came time to build, they built the way folks built in those days. Logs.

A log building, plain and earnest, raised up to shelter a church that had started with nothing more than a family's parlor and a shared sense of purpose. That original log structure served its time. Then, in 1934, a new building went up on the ground, the one that stands today.

Nearly ninety years of Sundays have passed through those walls since. Enon Baptist Church, Upshur County, organized May the thirteenth, 1848, in the home of a member. Some beginnings, they don't need much dressing up.

What the marker says

Organized May 13, 1848, in home of M. S. Long, a member. Other charter members were D. M., J. D. J., and Lucinda Davis, S. I. and Sarah Knight, and Martha Mattocks. First pastor was J. M. Griffin. Original building of logs. This building erected 1934. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1966