Harmony Baptist Church and Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Grimes County, a story starts with a man named John Moore McGinty and his wife Mary Loretta Brown. The year was 1853, and they had just settled in Stoneham.

Now, some folks plant crops when they put down roots. The McGintys planted something a little harder to uproot. They organized the Grimes Prairie Baptist Church.

That was the beginning, though nobody knew yet just how far that beginning would reach. About 1859, the congregation picked itself up and moved to a schoolhouse in the area you're passing through right now, and somewhere along the way they gave the whole thing a new name. Harmony.

Just Harmony. Property was acquired from Blake and Peggy Brantley, and by 1870 the first church house had been erected right here on this land. The congregation was growing, the name had taken hold, and the cemetery had already been in use for years before it was ever formally deeded to anyone.

That deeding came after loss. When John Moore McGinty died, his wife and his son deeded over that cemetery land, land that had already been receiving the community's departed for some time. Then, about 1924, a new building was completed on the property.

Services were held here after that, right up through the 1930s. And then they weren't. Harmony Baptist Church had carried a community through settling years, through grief, through generations, and when the services finally went quiet, the land and the cemetery stayed behind to hold the memory.

Some roots, once planted, just don't let go.

What the marker says

Soon after John Moore McGinty (1823-1888) and his wife Mary Loretta Brown settled in Stoneham in 1853, they organized the Grimes Prairie Baptist Church. About 1859 the congregation moved to a schoolhouse in this area and changed the name to "Harmony". This property was acquired from Blake and Peggy Brantley, and the first church house erected in 1870. Upon the death of McGinty, his wife and son deeded the cemetery land which had been in use for years. About 1924 this building was completed. Services were held here until the 1930s.