Sardis Primitive Baptist Church was formed 10 June, 1876, near Murphree Cemetery in the home of Samuel M. and Phebe (Nations) Murphree. 

Charter members were W. M. West, M. W. Dumas, R. Burks. Samuel M. Murphree, F. B. Brown, A. Burks, Elizabeth West, Nancy Dumas, R. N. Jeffries, B. E. Lee, W. R. Chambers, J. B. Dumas, J. C. Caudle, Jasper Chambers, Pheba Murphree, Susan Brown, Polly Ann Dumas, Rebecca Lee, Rebecca Jeffrey, Margaret H. Lee, and Elizabeth Dumas.

Elder W. S. Harris,

Elder Len Dalton.

E. B. Hedgpeth.

Services continued to be held in the Murphree home for a time before moving to the Little Cowhouse School near Little Cowhouse Cemetery. (Perhaps about 1911 when the Little Cowhouse School and Leesville School merged into Union School.) Sardis Church next moved to Blue Ridge before moving to Parsley Crossing 9 ½ miles south of Hamilton. The Sardis Primitive Baptist Church was moved (building and congregation) into Hamilton in 1946 and relocated on North Rice Street (HWY 281) across the street north of the IOOF Cemetery. A fellowship building was added on the east side of the auditorium. After 1995 the two Primitive Baptist churches in Hamilton consolidated at the location of Sardis and the name was changed to United Primitive Baptist Church.

Samuel and Phebe Murphree moved to Texas in 1875 with their orphaned Coker grandchildren and lived near where the Murphree Cemetery is now located. Marion Andrew and Mary Elizabeth (Bullard) Whittenton and Tom and Miralda Wesley were among the founders of this church. In 1885 Albert Perry Koen was ordained to the ministry at Sardis Primitive Baptist Church.