Enoch Tolbert Shipley left home with a mule train at the early age of eleven years, and found employment with the transcontinental railroad then under construction. In the year 1857 he was returning home when captured by Mexican Braceros in Silver City, Colorado, and taken to Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, Mexico. After his release about 1859 or 1860 he established the First Baptist Mission, which is believed to be the first evangelical church ever established in Mexico. A letter, hand delivered to Rev. Shipley, dated in 1879, along with another letter dated in 1880, both written in Spanish telling about the progress of the church and her two missions, and the number of souls being saved, are treasured possessions of his grandson, Wayland G. Adams.

E.T. Shipley returned to Arkansas where he met and married Sarah Jane Gibbs. Three children were born to them. While still in Arkansas Enoch received his license as a County Surveyor of Madison County, Arkansas in 1869.

In 1870 the Shipley family moved to Texas and settled in the Acton Community, where he engaged in the mercantile business and was an active Minister of the Gospel. He kept a diary of the trip to Texas, and one interesting item is that practically every day something about the wagon broke. One entry said, "Nothing broke on the wagon today. It is Sunday and we did not move the wagon." In 1876 the family moved to Glen Rose, where they resided until they built a home in the Rock Creek Community. He assisted in establishing the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, which later was moved and the name changed to Rock Creek Baptist Church. He was one of the original 26 messengers who organized Paluxy Baptist Association. He served on the Executive Board of the Association and on the Board of Trustees of Paluxy Baptist College. He was a Master Mason and affiliated with the Acton Masonic Lodge on demit from a lodge in Arkansas in 1870, the year he came to Texas. He was pastor of the Hill Creek Baptist Church at the time of his death in 1884.

1999 HOOD COUNTY TEXAS GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY