Saint Paul Baptist Church

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm drawing straight from the official marker, so let me share what it says about Saint Paul Baptist Church in Collin County. Now, some congregations take root slow. Others, you get the feeling, were always meant to be there.

Saint Paul Baptist Church got its start in 1872; that's just seven years after the Civil War; organized right here in Collin County by the Reverend Jeff Shirley, who'd come up from Kentucky. One of the oldest Black congregations in the whole county, and they weren't waiting on anybody to hand them a building. In the early days, the members worshiped beneath a brush arbor.

You know what that is: timber frame, branches laid across the top, open to the sky and whatever weather Texas sees fit to send. Humble as a thing can be, and yet they gathered. They kept gathering.

By 1885, they were ready to build something that would last. They purchased land from a man named T.E. Shirley and raised their first proper church building on it.

Three years later, Shirley sold them acreage adjacent to Melissa Cemetery; ground where their own could be laid to rest. A place of worship, and a place of remembrance. The congregation was putting down roots in every sense of the word.

Then comes April 13, 1921. A tornado took the original sanctuary. Just took it.

All those decades of fellowship, that first building they'd worked and saved and prayed over, gone in the kind of afternoon that reminds you Texas weather doesn't negotiate. But here's the thing about a congregation that started under a brush arbor: they already knew how to worship without walls. They erected a new frame building, and they carried on.

For over a hundred years now, Saint Paul Baptist has held an annual homecoming celebration every May. Every year. That's not habit; that's devotion.

And the marker doesn't let the families go unnamed. Chiseled right into the back of the stone, a roll call of the faithful: Sanders, Clayton, Thomas, Hawkins, Perry, Thornton, Johnson, Crockett, Frazier, Carter, Jackson. Names that built something, buried their dead, rebuilt after the storm, and showed up in May, year after year, to celebrate that they were still here.

That's a story that doesn't need any embellishing. It just needs to be told.

What the marker says

One of Collin county's oldest black congregations, this church was organized in 1872 by the Rev. Jeff Shirley of Kentucky. Members worshiped beneath a brush arbor before constructing their first church building in 1885 on land purchased from T.E. Shirley. Three years later, Shirley sold them acreage adjacent to Melissa Cemetery for a church burial ground. After the original sanctuary was destroyed by a tornado on April 13, 1921, a new frame building was erected. For over 100 years, this fellowship has held an annual homecoming celebration in May. (1978) Incise on back: Faithful Families Sanders Clayton Thomas Hawkins Perry Thornton Johnson Crockett Frazier Carter Jackson