First Baptist Church of Rockwall

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, best I can offer you. Now, the town of Rockwall wasn't even a gleam in anybody's eye yet when this story gets started. We're talking 1852; two full years before Rockwall itself would be founded.

So when Elder John R. Briscoe and Elder M. Glover gathered a small band of believers together in the home of a man named J.

C. Williams, they didn't call it First Baptist Church of Rockwall. Couldn't.

The place didn't have that name yet. They called it New Hope Baptist Church, and if you stop and turn that name over in your mind a moment, it fits just right for a congregation assembling itself on the Texas frontier out of sheer will and faith. The charter members (and I want to say their names, because they earned it) were Hester, Isaac, James, Mildred, and Persila Briscoe; Felitha, Martha, and Rosana Jones; Hannah Thompson; and J.

C. and Nancy Williams. Eleven souls, gathered in a home, planting something that would outlast nearly everything around them. Their first regular pastor was the Reverend H.

E. Calahan. And for years, years, now, this congregation made do.

Homes. Schoolhouses. A Masonic hall.

Wherever there was a roof and room enough, they gathered under it. That is not a footnote; that is a way of life, and it went on for a good long while. It wasn't until 1876 that the congregation finally occupied a building of its own.

Twenty-four years of borrowed spaces. Then, nearly a century after that, a present sanctuary rose in 1970. Here's the thing that'll stay with you down the road: this congregation, born before its own town had a name, grew up to become the oldest congregation in the entire Dallas Baptist Association.

Started with eleven people in somebody's front room, before Rockwall was Rockwall. Not a bad run for a little church called New Hope.

What the marker says

Organized in 1852 by Elder John R. Briscoe and Elder M. Glover in the home of J. C. Williams, this was originally called New Hope Baptist Church, as Rockwall was not founded until 1854. Charter members: Hester, Isaac, James, Mildred, and Persila Briscoe; Felitha, Martha and Rosana Jones; Hannah Thompson; J. C. and Nancy Williams. First regular pastor was the Rev. H. E. Calahan. After years in homes, schoolhouses, and a Masonic hall, the congregation occupied a building of its own in 1876; present sanctuary, 1970. This is the oldest congregation in the Dallas Baptist Association. (1976)