Oak Hill Missionary Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. Somewhere in Upshur County, there's a congregation with deep roots, and I mean deep. The Oak Hill Baptist Church, the first Baptist congregation in this area, was organized about 1870.

Think about that for a second. About 1870. The Civil War still fresh in memory, and here come a group of people putting down roots of faith right here on this ground.

In the beginning, they didn't have grand windows or polished pews. Early services were held in a one-room log school house near this very site. One room.

A congregation, a roof, and whatever they carried in their hearts. That was enough to get started. Now, things got a little more official on November 12, 1884.

That's the date Mrs. Carrie V. Johnson donated two and one-third acres to the church.

Two and one-third acres, recorded and given. And soon thereafter, a frame structure went up, built by a carpenter named Hardin. Just Hardin.

The marker doesn't give us more than that, but that name is in the record, and that's something. Then came the turn of the century, and with it, a change. About 1900, the congregation gave the church a new name, Oak Hill Missionary Baptist Church, to reflect the evangelical persuasion of the people gathered there.

The name wasn't just a label. It was a declaration. And the story didn't stop there.

In 1948, the present church sanctuary was erected. From a one-room log school house to a proper sanctuary, from about 1870 to 1948, one congregation holding the same ground. That's not just a building.

That's a community writing itself into history one decade at a time.

What the marker says

The Oak Hill Baptist Church, the first Baptist congregation in this area, was organized about 1870. Early services were held in a one-room log school house near this site. On Nov. 12, 1884, Mrs. Carrie V. Johnson donated two and one-third acres to the church, and soon thereafter, a frame structure was built by a carpenter named Hardin. The name was changed to Oak Hill Missionary Baptist Church about 1900 to reflect the evangelical persuasion of the congregation. The present church sanctuary was erected in 1948.