Bernard Pyron
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hrmca
"MANN'S CROSSING, TEXAS. Mann’s Crossing is at the intersection of Old Pearsall Road and the Medina River in southwest Bexar County. It is named after the Mann family who immigrated to Texas from Alsace-Lorraine as part of the original Henri Castro Colony (see CASTRO’S COLONY) on the upper Medina River. The Mann family operated a ferry at Mann’s Crossing as late as the 1880s. Mann’s Crossing is part of the land granted to Sam McCulloch, Jr., a free black soldier in the Texas Revolution who settled in the area in 1852. In 1857 the Medina Baptist Church was organized at Mann's Crossing. Members of this church eventually left and founded Somerset, Texas. Sam McCulloch donated land to the church to use as a cemetery, which is now known as the Sam McCulloch Cemetery."
My note: Samuel McCulloch Jr., who was given a Republic of Texas Land Grant that was a strip of land running from just below Elm Creek to the area of the Medina at Macdona and Mann's Crossing, was either one quarter or one half black. The Somerset where the Medina Baptist Church moved (in about 1866 according to the book, Advancing the Master's Cause: A Centennial History of The Somerset (Medina) Baptist Church, 1857-1957, 1957, by Ken Caruthers) was not the present town of Somerset in southern Bexar county, but the community known as the Old Rock Community or Old Somerset in northern Atascosa county. The Old Rock Baptist Church still stands in the area of Old Somerset and has a Texas Historical Marker on it. People from the Medina Baptist Church built an arbor near the I.M. Cowan place in about 1866.
Mann's Crossing on the Medina was just east of the present town of Macdona, which is not much over two miles NW of Von Ormy, which is about three miles north of Somerset.
http://www.txtransportationmuseum.org/history-macdona.php
"For decades the Macdona Dance Hall was the center of social activity. Many big name stars played there, including Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and Tex Ritter. It closed in 1952 and became an auction hall. It finally burned down in 1968"
I remember going to the Macdona Dance Hall when I was in High School, with a group that included Lamar Miller. But i don't remember anything about Macdona.
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=420547
"Geronimo Treviño II) recently published a book of Texas country music titled 'Dance Halls and Last Calls.'
"He even met his wife, Judy, at a dance hall, the Hangin' Tree Saloon in Bracken in 1990."
"Two years later, Treviño opened for Willie Nelson at John T. Floore Store in Helotes. Judy Cathey-Treviño took a ton of photos, and Treviño began taking notes — on the country music icon as well as the landmark dance hall."
"Hank Williams' last two shows before he died were at Macdona Hall, southwest of San Antonio, which burned in 1986."
The Texas Top Hands backed up Hank Williams, in one of his last performances which was at the Macdona Dance Hall in December of 1952, according to Dance Halls and Last Calls, A History of Texas Country Music, by Geronimo Trevino, Republic of Texas Press, 2002.
The book, The Centennial History of the Somerset Baptist Church, 1957, by Ken Caruthers, on page 11 says that in 1870, from the leather bound ledger kept by F.M. Avent, first Church Clerk of the Medina Baptist Church, the church had $40 to buy doors and windows. In 1873 a deed was acquired for the property, and the grace yard for the Old Rock Baptist Church was fenced in 1874. There were 158 members of the Old Rock Church in 1879 and 180 in 1883. Again, from the Centennial History, on page 17 Elder L. T. Meer became the preacher in 1887, and "During Elder Mear's stay members came from Lavaca county and Antioch Baptist Church in Louisiana" "In October A.M. Pyron carried $24.50 to the Association Missionary Fund."
The Centennial History says on page 8 that "An entry from May, 1861, records a meeting held at Smith's School House. By June two sites had been offered the Church for his purpose. Elder Edward Poe's offer was refused and that of Mr Sam McCulloch was selected in September of the same year." Mr. Sam McCulloch is Samuel McCullock Jr, veteran of the Army of the Republic of Texas who received that land grant which ran up to the Macona area of the Medina river.
Then, on page 17 the Centennial History says "A short distance away a crossroads village called Bexar had sprung up during the coal mining boom of the eighties. There was a post office there, several businesses, and newspaper. In May, 1892, the Church voted to leave its home of twenty-six years and move preaching and membership to the Bexar School House.
In May of 1896 space for a church building was given by Dr. J.A. Matthews, and a building committee was appointed. The History on page 18 says "This committee, whose members were S.H. Wildman, M. W. Sample, A.M. Pyron and Edward Winans, reported progress in November....meanwhile, 9.67 acres had been bought from F.M. and Harriet Avent for $50. This land was laid off into a new cemetery whose lots were priced at $5 each."
On page 19 the History shows a photo of the Medina Baptist Church building at Old Bexar, with the caption "Medina Baptist Church Was Located At Bexar, Texas, from 1892-1922." The photo shows a white steep roofed building with a steeple
"Pastors serving the Medina Baptist Church during the years fromn 1907 to 1917 were S.C. Harl, S.R. Dillon, Emmett Byrom, Oscar Farrel and W.L. DuBose.
On page 21 the History says "A.M. Pyron was the first to suggest that the Church be moved to the new town. The congregation was in favor of this and adjoining lots were purchased at the corner of Caruthers and West Fifth streets...In 1922 the Church voted to use the W.O.W (Woodmen of the World) Hall as a meeting house while the church at Bexar was razed. It was rebuilt on the new property into a tabernacle fifty feet square."
On page 24 the History says "Membership varied during this decade, going from a high of 191 in 1929 to a low of 153 in 1933. Serving as decons were Fred C. James, S. B. Moore, J.D. Edwards (Jefferson Davis or Bodie Edwards), R.E. Bailey, Hardy Cowley and H. W. Caruthers....In 1936 the Church voted the change the name of the seventy-nine year old Medina Baptist Church to Somerset Baptist Church.
Then on page 25 the History records that "The Church acquired two new deacons during this time (1937-1947). They were Milton Pyron (Casey Pyron) and D. J. bartlett. In 1940 the Church property at Old Somerset was deeded to the Old Rock congregation.
Here are two additional bits of information from the 1957 book, A Centennial History of the Somerset (Medina) Baptist Church, 1857-1957:
On page 17 Caruthers writes that "J.M. Rogers began his duties as pastor in May 1890...His services were held at Wildman and Bexar school houses on occasion." Maybe this is why the Wildman School was called the Wildman Chapel.
Then, on page 22 the book says "Advertising appearing the the Aug 11, 1922 issue of the Somerset News testified to the fact that the town had two barber shops, a cafe, a real estate company, dressmaker, freight and bus lines, wholesale produce company, a bank, general mercantile store, insurance agency, grocery, market, lumberyard, tailor shop, gent's furnishing store,, and a garage. Several drilling companies were operating and Grayburg had eighteen rigs running. The Oil Association and the Ku Klux Klan were granted use of the Baptist Tabernacle on occasion."
Here is another bit of information: On page 15 Caruthers says that "In 1879 and 1880 our church met in a seventeen day protracted arbor meeting with Benton City. In 1882 this was repeated at the Box School House, Benton City. This must be the school house known as the Old Box School House on a dirt road that ran south to Atascosa Creek from the main east to west road in north Atascosa county.
Below is a bit of information on the Old Rock Baptist Church at Old Somerset, just south of the Bexar-Atascosa county line:
Its not from the Caruthers book. The link is: http://www.andrewbutlerphotos.com/History/Churches/Old-Churches/14069478_HTszQs/11/2193971717_FzbNPHH#!p=10&n=10
Old Rock Baptist Church
Lytle
Atascosa County, Texas
29 11.458' N 98 40.799' W
"Historical Marker: Organized as Medina Baptist Church in April 1857 at Mann's Crossing, near Macdona. Until 1866, when members built an arbor here near Old Somerset, the services were held in homes or in a schoolhouse. Site for meetinghouse and cemetery (2.5 acres here) was bought for ten dollars in 1867 by committeemen F. M. Avent, Elisha A. Briggs, and W. D. Johnson on behalf of Medina Church. This committee also drew the plans; Briggs, a settler from Massachusetts and a stonemason, did much of the construction. Worship began here in 1869 as soon as house had roof and walls--although door and window spaces were empty and there was no floor except bare ground. In those early days, four ordained ministers took turns as unpaid pastors. Avent was clerk and sexton. Medina Church membership was racially integrated. Some of the Negro members lie buried in honored graves in the cemetery. In 1892 Medina Church relocated at Bexar. Cemetery maintenance was continued here; "Old Rock" was usedat times for funerals or worship. In 1921, after local petroleum discoveries, Grayburg Oil Company and some of its employees helped renovate the meetinghouse. Congregation renamed itself for the Old Rock Church and regular worship has continued here ever since."
This site does not say where the information above came from.
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hro35
"When the Grayburg Oil Company located in the area in 1921, the building was refurbished and took the name "Old Rock Church."
My comments on the timeline of the theology taught by the Medina Baptist Church:
I joined the Somerset Baptist Church, which was historically the Medina Baptist Church, in 1946 or 1947, when I was 14 or 15. What I remember the preacher at that time teaching was not the basic doctrines of dispensationalism, such as the pre-tribulation rapture or the continued chosen people status of physical Israel. Instead, I remember him talking more along the lines of Calvinism. This memory tends to line up with the movement led by W.A. Crisswell and others in the 1960's to have the Southern Baptist Convention officially promote dispensationalist theology, often called fundamentalistism by this group and others.
The Southern Baptist Convention was not completely taken over by dispensationalism during the first half of the 20th century. For example, George W. Truett (1867–1944), was the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, from 1897 until 1944 and the president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1927 to 1929.
Truett went to the Davis Mountains of West Texas many times and organized cowboy churches out there in the early 20th century when cattle drives were still held on the open range in that more unsettled area.
On http://www.founders.org/journal/fj09/article1.html
they say that W.A. Crisswell "... did not get it (dispensationalism) from his great predecessor, George W. Truett, who pastored the First Baptist Church in Dallas, for 47 years before Dr. Criswell. George W. Truett was a postmillennialist."
At least in a large part of the 20th century, perhaps up to the fifties and sixties, the Southern Baptists had both dispensationalists and non-dispensationalists in their ranks. They have often talked about a takeover of the Convention after the sixties by "Fundamentalism." But as I understand Fundamentalism, it was a mix of Princeton Theology, especially that of J. Gresham Machen, a Calvinist, with the dispensationalism of John Darby, C.I. Scofield and Lewis S. Chafer.
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