Landmark Baptists trace their origin back to the times of Christ, but a list "Landmarkism" and "Landmark Baptist" arose away from an ecclesiological contestation in a Southern Baptist Convention in the mid-1800's. A leaders of what would get called a Landmark movement were James Robinson Graves, James Madison Pendleton, and Amos Cooper Dayton (sometimes known as a Outstanding Triumvirate).

the emphasis of Landmarkism is (One) that a church is local & seeable simply; (Deuce) that a church has experienced a continuous being since its organization by Jesus before Pentecost until the present day (occasionally known as Baptist successionism or church perpetuity); (Terzetto) that a Great Commission was given to the church (local churches) only; & (Quadruplet) that baptism and the Lord's supper are church ordinances and are only valid when performed by authority of a New Testament (Baptist) church.

Landmark ideas of ecclesiology still exist in a Southern Baptist Convention, but come sir thomas more closely associated sustaining a American Baptist Association, the Baptist Missionary Association of America, and a Interstate & Foreign Landmark Missionary Baptist Association. Several Independent Baptist churches and virtually all unaffiliated Missionary Baptist local associations as well hang on to this ecclesiology. After a majority of the Southern Baptist Convention refused to use the logical conclusions of Landmarkism to their institutions (like all remodeling their rules of mission function), numerous of the strongest advocates of Landmarkism withdrew in the late 1800's. A Gospel Mission controversy, centering around missionary Tarleton Perry Crawford in China, and a Whitsitt controversy, centering around a historical views of seminary prof William Heth Whitsitt, are considered a share of a Landmark arguing inside the Southern Baptist Convention.

Another Baptists, like Primitive Baptists, hold ecclesiological viewpoints that may be similar to Landmarkism.