Roberts Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in San Augustine County, there's a church with roots that go down deep, and I mean deep. It started in 1872, when the Reverend John Patton founded what would become Roberts Baptist Church.

Now, he didn't have a fine wood building to start in. He had a brush arbor. That's it.

Sky for a ceiling, branches for shade, and faith for the rest. From that humble beginning, the members got to work. They erected a proper building on land given to them by a man named Elisha Roberts, two and a half miles to the northeast.

A congregation rising up on donated ground. That's a particular kind of generosity, and they honored it. Then in 1918, the church bought its present site, putting down roots in a new place but carrying every year of that history right along with them.

Now here's the part of this story that'll stop you cold if you let it. The member families of Roberts Baptist Church have been faithful for generations. That alone is something.

But so have the pastors. The Reverend Jim Canton stepped into that pulpit, and when his time came, his son, the Reverend Hubert Canton, stepped up right behind him. Father and son, the same pulpit, the same congregation.

Between the two of them, the Canton family held that Roberts pulpit for fifty-eight years. Fifty-eight years. You plant a church in a brush arbor in 1872, and somehow, a century later, you're still standing.

Roberts Baptist Church didn't just survive. It endured.

What the marker says

Founded 1872 by the Rev. John Patton, in Brush Arbor. Members erected building on land (2.5 mi. NE) given by Elisha Roberts, but in 1918 bought present site. Member families are faithful for generations; so are pastors: the Rev. Jim Canton and son, the Rev. Hubert, were in the Roberts pulpit for 58 years. (1972)