DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, St. Peter's Baptist Church out in Matagorda County — this is a story that starts in the kind of silence that heavy storms leave behind.
The early records? Lost. Gone to weather and water, the way so many things in coastal Texas have a habit of disappearing.
So what we know, we piece together carefully. The church is likely to have been organized by African Americans in the area back in the 1870s. That's the foundation — a community coming together to build something that mattered.
And here's where the story gets a little weight to it. The land this church sits on was deeded in 1879 by the heirs of Samuel Rhoads Fisher — now that name ought to ring a bell, because Samuel Rhoads Fisher was one of the men who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. His heirs transferred that land to the trustees of St.
Peter's Baptist Church. Think on that a moment. Land connected to the very signing of Texas independence, passed along to a congregation of freed Black Texans building a future.
Then 1928 comes along, and the St. Peter's building burned. That could've been the end of the story.
It wasn't. Members of the Matagorda Baptist Church gave their building to the St. Peter's congregation.
One church extended its hand to another. And when that marker was recorded in 1998, St. Peter's Baptist Church was still there — still worshipping in the traditions of their founders.
Some things storms can't take.
What the marker says
Though early records for St. Peter's Baptist Church were lost in heavy storms, the church is likely to have been organized by area African Americans in the 1870s. The heirs of Samuel Rhoads Fisher, who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, deeded land on this site to the trustees of St. Peter's Baptist Church in 1879. After the St. Peter's Church building burned in 1928, members of the Matagorda Baptist Church gave their building to the St. Peter's congregation. In 1998 St. Peter's Baptist Church continues to worship in the traditions of their founders. (1998)