Church Hill United Methodist Church
Henderson, Rusk County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1839 this congregation was organized with the Rev. Claugh Waterfield as pastor. The first member was 14-year-old William F. Richards. The Rev. William Craig began the 300-mile church hill circuit in 1843. John Robertson, John Strong, and Samuel Wasson set aside this 27-acre plot for a church and schoolhouse in 1852. When the structure was erected in 1879, there were about 12 dirt-floored houses built nearby for families during camp meetings. The "Academy," which served as the schoolhouse, is used as the educational building.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1839 during the days of the Republic of Texas, this Methodist congregation was among the earliest in the region, first gathered by a pastor who rode a 300-mile circuit to reach scattered settlers. In 1852 landowners set aside a 27-acre plot for both a church and a schoolhouse, and by the time the sanctuary rose in 1879 a cluster of dirt-floored cabins stood nearby to house families during camp meetings. The old Academy still serves as the church's educational building.
Why it matters
Circuit-riding preachers and camp meetings brought both faith and schooling to the raw Texas frontier, and this congregation's survival links today's community directly to the Republic era.
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Related people
- · Rev. Claugh Waterfield
- · William F. Richards
- · Rev. William Craig
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
John Strong and Mary Ann (Whatley) Strong
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Georgia natives John (1806–1854) and Mary Ann Strong (1809–1898) came to Texas about 1849 and became pioneer settlers of eastern Rusk County. They helped set aside land for a local Methodist congregation, for the Church Hill Male and Female Academy that operated in the 1850s, and for the community cemetery, while making their home near a nearby spring. Their donations seeded the schools, churches, and burial grounds that gave the settlement its shape.
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In 1866, barely a year after emancipation, freedpersons in Rusk County organized Antioch Baptist Church and gathered a community around it. The congregation went on to plant five more churches and to sustain a school, whose one-room building was rebuilt in the early 1920s with help from the Rosenwald Fund before integration closed it in 1966. Church, school, and cemetery together made Antioch a lasting freedmen's settlement.
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