DUANE
Get the App
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna pass it right along to you. March 13, 1859. Two missionaries for the Texas Baptist Convention, John Clabaugh and W.A.
Mason, rode into the Bosque County area with a purpose. They gathered ten area residents together, and right there, First Baptist Church of Meridian was born. Ten people.
That's it. That's your founding congregation. Now, they didn't have a building.
Not yet. Circuit-riding preachers conducted those first worship services, and the congregation made do with what the community had. They met in the county courthouse.
They met in the community school. Sunday after Sunday, borrowing space, building something that couldn't be borrowed, which is to say, faith and fellowship and a congregation that was growing roots. Then came the 1870s, and the members finally raised up a church building of their own.
A place that was theirs. But a church with that kind of momentum doesn't stand still. In 1888, the congregation moved to a new site.
And then again, in 1947, they moved once more. Two relocations, across nearly a century of change in Meridian and in Texas itself. Through all of it, missions stayed at the heart of what this congregation did.
Members worked with area youth. They worked with the elderly. The focus kept coming back to the people around them.
And today, First Baptist Church of Meridian is still standing, still serving, still a spiritual leader for the residents of that town. Ten people showed up on a March morning in 1859. The rest, as they say, is Bosque County history.
What the marker says
John Clabaugh and W.A. Mason, missionaries for the Texas Baptist Convention, established First Baptist Church of Meridian on March 13, 1859 with ten area residents. Circuit-riding preachers conducted the first worship services, and the congregation met in the county courthouse and in the community school until members constructed a church building in the 1870s. The church moved to new sites in 1888 and again in 1947. Missions hae been a primary focus of the congregation; members have also worked with area youth and with the elderly. Today, First Baptist Church continues to serve as a spirtual leader for the residents of Meridian.