SALEM, TEXAS (Freestone County). Salem is four miles south of Teague and one mile east of Farm Road 80 in southwest Freestone County. The Salem Predestinarian Baptist Church, one of the oldest churches in the county, was founded in December 1853 by Thomas Dossey, C. T. Echols, and the Lee families. The land for the church and a cemetery was given by the McSwaine family. The log structure first built for the church was later replaced by a frame building. By the 1930s there were only a few dwellings in the area, and by the 1960s only the church, the cemetery, and a couple of dwellings remained. A new chapel was erected in 1961, and in 1967 the church and cemetery received a Texas state historical marker. The earliest grave in the cemetery was found to date from 1861. In the late 1980s the church and cemetery were still in existence.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Freestone County Historical Survey Committee, Official Texas Historical Markers of Freestone County (Fairfield?, Texas, 1974). Freestone County Historical Commission, Freestone County Cemeteries, Vol. 1 (1976).

Chris Cravens