Page 2 - "Light on the Prairie"
THE FIRST TEXAS BAPTISTS
Joseph Bay was born in South Carolina, moved to Texas on June 30, 1820.
He landed where Sabine County now is. When he came, he brought thirty
families with him. They wished to enter Texas and establish a colony. The
place where they halted was neutral ground between the United States and
Texas, which was part of Mexico. They formed their camp on this neutral
ground and stayed there several months awaiting permission from Spain to
enter Texas.
Bays was not idle while being thus detained. He did some preaching in
Louisiana, which belonged to the United States, and some on the Texas
side. At a three-day meeting in which different denominations in the
company took a part, Billy Gook, a Universalist was converted under
Reverend Bay’s preaching and was baptized by him. If this baptism was
performed on Texas soil, it was the first instance of a baptism
administered in Texas by a Baptist preacher.
FIRST TEXAS SUNDAY SCHOOL
It is the custom of Missionary Baptists that they soon
establish or organize a Sunday School after the church is instituted. Here
it was no different, and soon after the brethren in Texas organized the
church, Deacon T. J. Pilgrim organized a Sunday
School in the old town of San Filipe
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