County Line Baptist Church and Cemetery
Daingerfield, Morris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
County Line Baptist Church records date back to 1859, but the church is believed to have been in existence some years earlier. The cemetery probably was already in use prior to 1863, when the earliest marked headstone was placed on this site for three-year-old John C. Leftwich. From the 1890s to 1901, County Line Community School met in the log church. A new church building was erected in 1901. Age and storm damage necessitated a move to another facility in 1943. The congregation began to allow grass to grow on the formerly scraped-earth cemetery grounds about that time. A number of veterans of the U. S. Armed Forces and various military conflicts are interred here. A cemetery association was formed in 1976. Both church and cemetery are chronicles of Morris County history. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
County Line Baptist Church traces its records to 1859 and likely stood even earlier, its cemetery already in use by 1863 when three-year-old John C. Leftwich became the first marked burial. For a decade around the turn of the century the log church doubled as the County Line Community School before a new building rose in 1901. When age and storm damage forced the congregation to relocate in 1943, the once scraped-earth cemetery was left to grow over in grass, and a cemetery association formed to tend it in 1976.
Why it matters
The shared life of a rural church, its one-room school, and its cemetery shows how a single log building could serve as the spiritual, educational, and civic heart of a frontier Texas community.
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Related people
- · John C. Leftwich
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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