Antioch Baptist Church - Turlington, TX
N 31° 42.488 W 096° 02.702
14R E 780049 N 3511883
The Antioch Baptist Church is at 198 FM 1364, a remnant of Turlington, TX, about eight miles southeast of Fairfield.
Waymark Code: WM16CNP
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 07/01/2022
Views: 4
The
Handbook of Texas Online provides some community history:
Turlington is on U.S. Highway 84 four miles southeast of Fairfield in southeast Freestone County. It received a post office with Joseph M. Parker as postmaster in 1901, when a store, gristmill, cotton gin, sawmill, and blacksmith shop were in operation. The community was named for a doctor who lived in the area. In 1915 the population was estimated at 100. It started to decline in the 1920s, and by the late 1930s Turlington had a church, a school, two businesses, and a population of twenty. The post office was closed in 1935. By 1982 only scattered dwellings remained; the population was estimated at twenty-seven in 1990. The population remained the same in 2000.
There's some activity on the church's Facebook page, which notes that the congregation has been active since the 1870s, but there's no history. There could be an older building under the sanctuary's modern façade -- note the steeple -- but at a glance, it looks modern, with a Welcome Center inside a wing and an adjacent Fellowship Hall. Behind the church and still active is the Antioch Cemetery, and a Texas Historical Marker at the gate also provides some community history, referencing the church:
The beginning of Antioch Cemetery is very closely associated with the Turlington community, the Antioch and Mt. Zion churches, and the surrounding rural area. The area has ample springs and creeks which increased the number of people who settled here. Most came to this region via steamboats on the Trinity River from Galveston. The Antioch Baptist Church was established in 1870, and the cemetery was established in 1877. Rev. John M. Webb (1824-1877), of Ouachita County, Arkansas, was elected as the pastor of the church in 1870 and was the first to be buried in its cemetery in 1877. The people of this region mostly made a living by farming or ranching.
Samuel G. Wells was one of the community's more memorable men. He came to Texas in 1833, fought in the Texas Revolution and the Kickapoo War. He was also one of the founders of Anderson County. Wells is buried here with his second wife, Lettie, and her brother, Benjamin Garner, a Civil War veteran. Rev. James King Lane also lies in this cemetery. He was also a Civil War veteran, founder and postmaster of the Lanely community and a member of the Texas House of Representatives. Conrad Henry, born in Germany, is the only known first generation immigrant buried in Antioch. His headstone is taller than any other marker in the cemetery. The cemetery is situated so that the older graves are in the center with the newer burials on the outer edges in all directions. The pioneer style flower called "deer tongue" is growing throughout the plots. It is said that this unique flower was brought to the area by the pioneers who settled here. Still used today, Antioch Cemetery reflects a continuum of local history with both historical and modern burials coexisting together.
Dr. Turlington and his family eventually moved to Oklahoma, but one of their infant children is buried in the cemetery.