OLD SHILOH BAPTIST CHURCH

 The following was taken from page 501 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Claudia Schuster

 Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Cemeteries of Texas

 The oldest known record to be found concerning the Shiloh church is in an obituary of Elizabeth Hudman, stating that she helped to organize the church in 1840.  The first building was a log structure and stood in what is now the Old Shiloh Cemetery.  On November 20, 1857, Josiah Johnson deeded six acres of land to the Shiloh Baptist Church, its members, deacons and their descendants, to be used for a church building and free burial place.  A fee of $1.20 was paid.  A wood church was built just outside of the present cemetery.  It was a large building with doors at each end and on each side.

Camp meetings were held under a brush arbor and the revivals were called “protracted meetings”.  Some of the early day members include the families of Johnson, Turner, Gilbreath, Pierce, Parker, Hudman, Armstrong, Threadgill, Wallace, Garner and Humphrey.

 In 1902, another church was organized after a disagreement among the members.  There was, then, the Missionary Baptist and the Southern Baptist.  The congregations alternated meeting in the same building until a church was built at the crossroads, after which the singing from the two churches, in unison, would fill the air for some distance.  Only one church is there at this time.  It is a brick building built in 1957.

 Deed records show that the road, which lies beside the church, was once part of the old Trammel Trace Road.  The oldest marker in the now large cemetery is dated 1853 and old-timers say that many slaves area buried there.  The Shiloh Community was first settled in the 1830’s and is located some four miles east of Mt. Enterprise and a short distance off of Highway 315 toward Carthage.