Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it right along to you. Way back in the years after the Civil War, three African-American Baptist congregations were putting down roots in Hill County. One of them had organized all the way back in 1869, over at Towash.

Two more grew up at Lofer's Bend and near Aquilla. Three separate flocks, three separate histories, three separate voices raised in worship across that Hill County land. Now, a story with three beginnings has to come together somewhere, and in 1883, that's exactly what happened.

Those three congregations united to form the Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church. Three became one. And that one was built to last.

The original building served its time, then made way for something new. In 1894, that original structure was demolished and the cornerstone was laid for a brand new building. A cornerstone is a promise, and Pleasant Hill intended to keep it.

Then in 1901, the church trustees made it official on paper, too, purchasing the church lot from Dr. D. R.

Wallace of Waco. By 1907, the congregation had grown to about one hundred members. One hundred people carrying forward what had started as three small congregations scattered across Hill County.

Now here's the part that lands. The marker was placed in 1998, more than a hundred years after that 1894 cornerstone went into the ground. And the members of Pleasant Hill, they're still there.

Still carrying on the traditions of worship and community that those early congregations, the one from Towash, the one from Lofer's Bend, the one from near Aquilla, laid down together. Three roots, one tree, still standing.

What the marker says

Among the first African-American Baptist congregations in Hill County were the churches at Towash (organized in 1869), Lofer's Bend, and near Aquilla. These three congregations were united in 1883 to form the Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church. Pleasant Hill's original building was demolished and the cornerstone laid for a new structure in 1894. Church trustees purchased the church lot from Dr. D. R. Wallace of Waco in 1901. The congregation had grown to about 100 members by 1907. More than 100 years later the members carry on the traditions of worship and community instilled by the early Pleasant Hill congregation. (1998)