OLDEST -- Non-Catholic Church north of Missouri River - New Franklin, MO - Superlatives on Waymarking.com

County of church: Howard County
Location of church: E. Broadway St. & Howard St., New Franklin
Built: 1888
Pastor: Bobby Kerr
Architectural Style: Gothic Revival

Historic Marker mounted on the porch column at the entrance to the church:
Marker Text:

In the year 1810 a number of families emigrated, mostly from Madison County, Kentucky, and made the first permanent settlement in the Boonslick country.

Several of the number were Baptists who came with the purpose of planting the gospel in these wild regions. They were joined in 1812 by several Baptist families from Loutre Island Settlement.

In 1812, on the 8th of April, Elders William Thorpe and David McLain held a meeting in a log cabin in which school was kept, situated a short distance from Old Franklin, in Fort Hempstead. At this meeting they organized the first Baptist Church in the "Upper Country," Mount Pleasant.

This historic church is recognized as the first permanent Baptist Church and the oldest non-Catholic church north of the Missouri River.

The first meeting house in all the territory north of the Missouri River was built on unregistered land at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in 1816. It was twenty feet square, very privative and of unhewn logs. A second structure, of brick, erected about 1829, later burned. A new frame meeting house was built in 1857. These three church buildings were all located just across the fence of the northeast corner of Munt Pleasant Cemetery near New Franklin.

The present church was built in New Franklin and dedicated December 2, 1888. The annex to the west was added in 1926. In 1960 the basement was enlarged and the educational addition on the north was added.

In December, 1951 the name of the church was changed from Mount Pleasant Baptist Church to First Baptist Church of New Franklin.