Bethesda Missionary Baptist Church

Date: 1867 [unknown]
Location: Marshall, Harrison, Texas, United States
Surnames/tags: US Black Heritage Black Churches

Bethesda Missionary Baptist Church, located at 801 W. Grand Ave. in Marshall, is one of the oldest African-American congregations in the county. It was established in 1867 during the Reconstruction period when so many newly-emancipated blacks left white churches to establish their own. Originally the name was simply the "Colored Baptist Church," which was the name on the deed. When the members elected to change the name, they identified it with the healing pool of Bethesda in Biblical Jerusalem. The word "Missionary" was added to its name in the mid-1980's to reflect denominational affiliation.

Prominent founders were David Abner, who was Harrison County treasurer, a member of the Texas House of Representatives in the Fourteenth Legislature, and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1875; and Andrew Gross, whose son Frederick became a president of Houston College.

The congregation also had a historic role in the founding of Bishop College, the African-American Baptist institution that was located in Marshall 1881-1961.