Elwood Methodist Church
Midway, Madison County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Begun in the 1840s, when the community of Elwood was known as French, this church first met in a log cabin built by James Blair Durham. Services were later held in a frame building near the cemetery before the present sanctuary was completed at the turn of the century. The cemetery and the nearby lone grave of a young girl are reminders of the area's early settlers, many of whom were members here. Through its leadership, the Elwood Methodist Church developed as a focal point for the surrounding rural area. (1983)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This Methodist congregation traces its roots to the 1840s, when the settlement was known as French and worshippers gathered in a log cabin raised by James Blair Durham. They later met in a frame building near the cemetery before completing the present sanctuary around the turn of the century. The adjacent cemetery, with its lone grave of a young girl, keeps the memory of the rural community's earliest families.
Why it matters
Rural churches like Elwood's were the social and spiritual center of scattered farming communities, holding together settlers whose nearest neighbors were miles away.
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Related people
- · James Blair Durham
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Allphin Cemetery
Elwood, TX
Ransom Allphin came from Illinois to Texas with his parents in 1829 and secured this land through an 1835 Mexican land grant, farming and running a grist mill on the frontier. In 1854, while digging a well, he struck clay and soapstone, abandoned the shaft, and donated five acres as a community burial ground—becoming its first grave that same year. Later burials, many from the 1918 influenza epidemic, layer generations of local history into the plot.
Bozeman Cemetery
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Bozeman Cemetery was established in 1852 near Midway in Madison County, when this part of Texas was still a young frontier of scattered farms and settlements. Designated a Historic Texas Cemetery, it preserves the resting place of some of the area's earliest pioneer families. Its weathered stones are among the few remaining records of the community that settled here before the Civil War.
Midway Church of Christ
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Though its exact founding is lost to sparse records, the Midway Church of Christ is thought to have organized around 1854, with traveling preachers serving it until Joseph Addison Clark became its first settled minister in 1855. Many of its early members helped build up Midway and Madison County. The congregation has worshiped on this same site ever since, enlarging its meeting house over the years while its roots reach back before the Civil War.
James and Calpernia Mitchell
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James and Calpernia Mitchell left Virginia for Texas in 1833 and settled on a Mexican land grant during the years when Texas was passing from Mexican province to independent republic to statehood. James helped locate the seat of Montgomery County in 1837 and became one of Walker County's first commissioners in 1846, while the family's house and inn on the Old San Antonio Road offered rest to travelers and served for a decade as the area post office. The couple lie in a family cemetery near this spot.