Chatfield, a prosperous farming community that originated in the mid-1840s as a trading post established near a spring by Indian trader Norman Chatfield and grew in the 1850s through the efforts of former Kentucky riverboat captain Robert Hodge, was the site of the organization of the Baptist General Association of Texas on July 17, 1868. For some years, friction within the Baptist denomination in Texas centered on educational issues and missions work. Members of the Baptist State Convention broke away from their parent organization in 1853 and eventually formed the Convention of Eastern Texas in 1855. This diverging group reorganized again as the Baptist General Association of Texas in a meeting from Friday, July 17, to Monday, July 20, 1868, northeast of Chatfield in a building used as a school, lodge, and church. For the next decade and a half, the two bodies rivaled each other for dominance in Texas, as did their two schools: Baylor University, then located in Independence in Washington County and backed by the state convention, and Waco University in McLennan County, supported by the General Association. Under prominent Baptists such as R.C. Buckner, Rufus Burleson, and Josiah Leake, who as Chatfield's pastor had hosted its first meeting, the association outpaced the state convention in influence. In 1886, the Baptist General Association merged with the Baptist State Convention to form the present statewide umbrella organization, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and the two schools also consolidated to form present-day Baylor University in Waco.