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Boyhood home of Rev. Robert Sheffey, “The Saint of the Wilderness”, legendary circuit-riding frontier preacher who gave up wealth and social position to spread the Word and Spirit of God. Built in 1820 by James and Elizabeth White. Partially burned in 1864 during the Civil War. Restored 1866. Photographed by Duane and Tracy Marsteller, October 23, 2022, HMDB.org Read more...
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Samuel Davies was Patrick Henry’s pastor growing up. Marker: Just west was Polegreen Church’s 18th-century glebe, a farm and residence provided for the benefit of its pastor. Polegreen was a congregation of Presbyterians dissenting from Virginia’s established Church of England. The Rev. Samuel Davies (1723-1761), a leader of the Great Awakening in the South, was Polegreen’s first pastor (1748-1759). A Read more...
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Samuel Davies was the pastor of Patrick Henry, and later President of Princeton University, before he died at age 37. Text: Just to the north stands Briery Church, organized in 1755 following the missionary work of Presbyterian minister Samuel Davies. The first church was built about 1760 and was replaced in 1824. The present Gothic Revival church was built about Read more...
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Built in 2011, this memorial, and others like it around the country, honors the legacy of the Four Chaplains: During the early morning hours of February 3, 1943, the USAT Dorchester was part of a convoy of six ships heading for Greenland when an enemy u-boat attacked, firing a torpedo into the ship’s midsection. The Dorchester quickly began taking on Read more...
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Inscription: B.B. McKinney was born here on July 22, 1886. He was a gospel song writer, evangelistic singer, teacher, and music editor. He composed 149 songs and was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1982. Some of his best-loved hymns are “The Nail Scarred Hand,” “Let Others See Jesus in You,” “Satisfied With Jesus,” “Speak to My Read more...
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From Wikipedia: The Luther Monument is a public artwork located in front of Luther Place Memorial Church in Washington, D.C., United States. The monument to Martin Luther, the theologian and Protestant Reformer, is a bronze, full-length portrait. It is a copy of the statue created by Ernst Friedrich August Rietschel as part of the 1868 Luther Monument in Worms, Germany. The version in Washington, D.C., inspired the installation of many other castings Read more...
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This marker commemorates the French Huguenot landing near this site on May 1, 1562, and their lives as colonists on the land until 1565. Hoping to escape religious persecution in Western Europe, the Huguenots set sail to this un-colonized portion of the New World, establishing La Caroline in June of 1564. Between May 1562 and September 1565, the Huguenots shaped Read more...
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Among the many plaques commemorating great Americans, we find: John Winthrop 1588 – 1649 In the early autumn of 1630, Winthrop and his company landed at the foot of Prince Street from Charlestown. Thus was begun the settlement of Boston. The spirit of Winthrop is forever a challenge to America: “To avoid shipwreck and provide for our posterity, we must Read more...
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Thomas A. Dorsey Father of Gospel Music Inscription. Thomas Andrew Dorsey, composer of over 400 blues and gospel songs, lived here following his birth in Villa Rica on July 1, 1899. At Mt. Prospect Baptist Church he was exposed to shape-note singing and at home learned to play a used pump organ, experiences he said “sprang” his career. The young Read more...
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2. Thomas A. Dorsey (Songwriters Hall of Fame). Excerpt: “…A high point for Dorsey’s music came when the legendary Red Foley and the Foggy Mountain Boys, stars of the Grand Ole’ Opry, recorded “Peace in the Valley,” which topped The Lucky Strike Hit Parade in 1948. His songs have been recorded by Elvis Presley, Pat Boone, Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, Jimmy Read more...
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Inscription. Born on July 2. 1897, in Somerville, Tenn., to sharecropper parents, the Rev. William H. Brewster was a prolific composer of gospel music, contributing over 200 works to the repertory. Two of his compositions, Move On Up a Little Higher (1946) and Surely, God is Able (1949) were the first black gospel recordings to sell over a million copies. An editor, educator, and poet, Read more...
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Inscription. Always eager to learn Born in 1851 to an enslaved father, Albert Tindley, and a free mother, Hester Miller Tindley, Charles Albert Tindley spent his childhood on a rural farm in Berlin. After marrying Daisy Henry, Tindley moved to Philadelphia, where he found employment as a brick carrier and a janitor at the church he attended. Despite his status Read more...
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You are standing where the tradition of baseball spring training began. In 1886, baseball legends A. G. Spalding and Cap Anson brought the Chicago White Stockings (now the Cubs) to this field to train and play spring games. They were joined by fellow Hall of Famers Mike “King” Kelly, John Clarkson and future evangelist Billy Sunday. On March 28, 1887, Read more...
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Inscription: A gospel singer, composer and publisher, Homer Rodeheaver was evangelist Billy Sunday’s music director for twenty years. He recorded for Gennett from 1921 to 1924. Photographed by Duane and Tracy Marsteller, April 29, 2023 for HMDB.org Read more...
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The Wadsworth-Longfellow House was built in 1785–1786 for General Peleg Wadsworth and Elizabeth Bartlett, maternal grandparents of the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Henry’s younger sister Anne Longfellow Pierce was the last person to live in the house. Widowed at an early age, Mrs. Pierce lived in the home until her death in 1901. Desiring to preserve it as a memorial Read more...
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Inscription The beginning of this congregation can be traced to 1843, when the Rev. James Graham organized the First Methodist Church in the area. It later took the name Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Meanwhile, another congregation, Lamar Avenue Methodist Church, was formed. After the destructive Paris fire of 1916, the two churches decided to form one central downtown congregation, Read more...
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Inscription The Trammel Fork Church was founded in 1802 with seventy members. Elder John Hightower was first pastor. This church was instrumental in constituting ten area churches. The first meeting house was a log structure; church now occupies its third building, erected in 1909. Trammel Fork Missionary Baptist Church – Mordecai Ham ordained by church, April 1, 1843, and preached Read more...
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Inscription First Baptist Church of Mineral Wells, organized in 1882, grew out of an early revival. William Evander Penn, known as the “Texas Evangelist,” conducted worship services in Palo Pinto County in 1882, and with 54 charter members he established the Mineral Wells Church. It would go on to host additional noted evangelists such as Billy Sunday, Mordecai Ham, Hyman Read more...
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Inscription North Carolina native George W. Truett followed his parents to Texas in 1889, and settled first in Whitewright in Grayson county. He worked on the family farm, attended Grayson Junior College, and became an active member of the Baptist Congregation. A gifted teacher and speaker, Truett was ordained a Baptist minister by the congregation in 1890. Truett had also Read more...
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Inscription Henry Clay MorrisonFamed Methodist preacher & pioneer of the Holiness movement. He came to Barren Co. at age 2 & was raised by his grandparents near here. He became one of nation’s premiere evangelists and was editor of the Pentecostal Herald for 54 years. He was president of Asbury College and founder of Asbury Theological Seminary, Wilmore, Ky. Morrison Read more...