Ebenezer Baptist Church & Cemetery

The Ebenezer Church and Cemetery are located about southeast of Kosse off of Highway 7.

The Ebenezer Baptist Church was established in 1865 and petitioned the Trinity Baptist Association for membership that same year.  The delegates representing the church were J. R. Bullard, William Samuel Clark, and Thomas Seale Head.  J. W. Kinnard was the pastor.  The petitionary letter listed 41 members.  It should be noted that some of these delegates had been active in the Salem Baptist Church of Eutaw, one of the oldest churches in Central Texas.  In fact, William Samuel Clark is credited for constituting the work at Salem in 1855.  Apparently, enough families had moved into the Head’s Prairie and Headsville communities to begin a work there. It is possible that Elder Clark initiated the Ebenezer work. 

Ebenezer Baptist Church was unanimously accepted into the Waco Baptist Association in 1867.  In 1869, it was represented at the Annual Meeting by two sets of messengers both expecting to be seated.  Due to a dispute in the church, the Association accepted the delegates led by J. D. Holton as moderator.  A committee was formed to hear out the schism and to report the following year.  In the 1870 Annual Meeting at the suggestion from the chairman of the Association Meeting, the letter from Ebenezer Church was withheld pending a report from the committee sent to investigate.  The committee reported an attempt to settle the dispute.  J. D. Holton’s group did not respond to the invitation to meet.  The same proposition was presented to the other group led by James Head.  They responded, but with only one party present, little could be accomplished.  The church was excluded from representation.

Another committee appointed in the 1870 Waco Association Annual Meeting of Eutaw did succeed is resolving the difficulty at Ebenezer.  Elder Mattison had been called as pastor.  A great spiritual awakening resulted from the restoration of fellowship.  The church added 35 by baptism and 27 by letter that year.  The 1871 Waco Association minutes show that the committee made recommendation that the church be reunited with the Waco Association.  This motion carried.  Ebenezer later joined the Little Brazos Association and finally the Limestone Association as the number of Associations increased to encompass smaller areas of Texas.  The membership of the church in 1897 was 210.  By 1958, the membership had declined so that the congregation disbanded.

The Ebenezer Cemetery, adjacent to the church, has served the people of the Head’s Prairie and Headsville communities since at least 1876, when both B. F. Brooks and Charlie Owen were buried there.  The cemetery is located in both Limestone and Robertson Counties, with the largest portion in Limestone County.  In 2012, the supporters of the Ebenezer Cemetery accepted a mining company’s offer of $35,000 to allow the mining company to move all the graves and tombstones from the Head Cemetery to the Ebenezer Cemetery.  Head Cemetery was located nearby in Robertson County.

Land for the Ebebezer Church and Cemetery was given by L. T. Robertson in exchange for title to all the school land east of the Thornton Public Road.