DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Tarrant County, before the county itself was barely a season old, something was already taking root. The earliest religious meetings in this place go back to the late 1840s — gatherings held under the banner of Lonesome Dove Baptist Church, out here where the land was raw and the congregation was whatever neighbors you could find.
Then, in 1850, something more permanent took shape. The Mt. Gilead Congregation was chartered.
Eight members. That's your whole church right there — eight souls, including two who were enslaved, their names unrecorded, their presence noted only in a count. The man directing this charter was the Reverend John Allen Freeman, born in 1821, and — I want you to hold onto this — he lived all the way to 1919.
Nearly a century on this earth. He shepherded a congregation into existence at the very beginning of Tarrant County's story, because this was the first church started after Tarrant County itself was formed in 1849. First one.
In the whole county. Those early services didn't have a proper building to call home. Folks gathered in one another's houses, or they made their way to a log schoolhouse sitting on land owned by Daniel Barcroft — born 1812, died 1881 — right here at this very site.
Now, nothing runs perfectly smooth across a century and a half. There was a stretch in the late 1870s and into the early 1880s when the congregation had to hold its meetings somewhere else. Where, the marker doesn't say.
Why, the marker doesn't say. But here's the thing — they came back. They always came back to this site.
And as far as the record goes, that's where Mount Gilead Baptist Church has been worshiping ever since.
What the marker says
The earliest religious meetings here began in the late 1840s as part of Lonesome Dove Baptist Church. The Mt. Gilead Congregation was chartered in 1850 under the direction of the Rev. John Allen Freeman (1821-1919) with 8 members, including 2 slaves. It was the first church started after the formation of Tarrant County in 1849. Early services were held in homes and in a log schoolhouse at this site on land owned by Daniel Barcroft (1812-81). Except for a time in the late 1870s and early 1880s when meetings were held elsewhere, the church has worshiped at this site. (1981)