DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my take on what the official marker has to say about the First Baptist Church of Port Lavaca — and friend, there is more packed into this story than you might expect from a congregation that started out without even its current name. We're talking about roots that go back to the 1830s, when Baptist missionaries were pushing into this part of Texas and planting seeds along the coast. By 1854, those seeds had taken enough hold that a formal congregation came together under the name Lavaca Baptist Church.
And right from the start, they had their people in place — Elder J. M. B.
Haynie stepping in as pastor, Ammon Burr taking on the role of clerk, and John Slater and Charles Ives serving as deacons. Four names. Four people who said, all right, we are building something here.
Now, here is where the story gets its weight. Whatever they thought they were building, they could not have fully imagined what was coming for them. The Civil War came through.
Hurricanes came through — this is the Gulf Coast, mind you, so that is not a small thing to say. And then a yellow fever epidemic. Any one of those could have scattered a congregation to the winds.
All three together? That is the kind of trial that ends institutions. But these Baptists kept their worship services going.
Through the war, through the storms, through the sickness. They held on. And in 1913, the state of Texas chartered them as the First Baptist Church of Port Lavaca.
Nearly sixty years after that first gathering, they had a new name, a formal charter, and a long memory of everything it had cost them. The congregation didn't stop there, either. They were active in helping form several other area congregations, spreading outward, and through all of it playing what the marker plainly calls an active role in the development of the town itself.
Some institutions survive history. This one helped shape it.
What the marker says
Organized in 1854 as the Lavaca Baptist Church, this congregation developed from area missionary efforts that began in the 1830s. The original church leaders were: Elder J. M. B. Haynie, pastor; Ammon Burr, clerk; and John Slater and Charles Ives, deacons. Despite early hardships such as the Civil War, hurricanes, and a yellow fever epidemic, the Baptists continued their worship services and in 1913 were chartered by the state as the First Baptist Church of Port Lavaca. Active in the formation of several area congregations, the church has played an active role in the development of the town. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.