First Christian Church of Lancaster
Lancaster, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(Disciples of Christ) On July 5, 1846, Roderick Rawlins (1776 - 1848) and 13 settlers began this fellowship. They met in homes and a one-room log schoolhouse. For years ordained members and itinerant preachers led services. After disruptions of the Civil War, the membership reorganized in 1880. The first church house was built in 1887 at the corner of Main and Henry. It burned in 1918 with other structures on the Square and was replaced the next year. In 1957 this site was acquired; the building was erected in 1960. This is one of the oldest Christian congregations in continuous service in the state.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On July 5, 1846—the very year Texas joined the Union—Roderick Rawlins and thirteen settlers gathered to found this Disciples of Christ fellowship, meeting in homes and a one-room log schoolhouse. For years traveling preachers served the little congregation, which regrouped after the disruptions of the Civil War and reorganized in 1880. Fire claimed its first church house in 1918, but the congregation rebuilt and endures as one of the oldest of its kind in continuous service in Texas.
Why it matters
Its unbroken life since 1846 links the frontier settlement of North Texas to the state's enduring religious and community roots.
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Related people
- · Roderick Rawlins
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First United Methodist Church of Lancaster
Lancaster, TX
Organized on May 25, 1868, by the Rev. Andrew Davis, this is among the oldest churches in North Texas, its early members worshiping in the Masonic Hall until a building rose in 1874. That first sanctuary reflected Victorian custom with separate entrances and seating for men and women. A larger church followed in 1911, and the present sanctuary, built in 1957, stands on the site of the original.
Town of Lancaster
Lancaster, TX
Kentucky-born A. Bledsoe settled here in 1846 and, with the Rawlins family, laid out this town around 1852, naming it Lancaster after the Kentucky town his grandfather had founded. Stores, churches, a school, and mills soon clustered on the one-square-mile townsite, and during the Civil War a Confederate pistol factory operated here. The town weathered repeated fires and the rise and fall of Randolph College, living for a century as a cotton-market town whose fortunes rose and fell with the crop.
First Baptist Church of Lancaster
Lancaster, TX
Lancaster's Baptists met in private homes through the 1840s and 1850s before fourteen charter members formally organized in 1867, worshiping first in a shared Masonic Hall and baptizing converts in Ten Mile Creek. In 1873 they built the town's first church building, its steeple bell now displayed in the churchyard. The congregation grew across successive buildings and a Ladies Aid Society that helped fund the first parsonage.
Rawlins Homestead
Lancaster, TX
The Rawlins family settled this stretch of Dallas County in 1845, and in 1855 Roderick A. Rawlins — who had married his teacher, Virginia Bledsoe, daughter of Lancaster's founder — began building here. After serving as a Confederate officer during the Civil War, Captain Rawlins rebuilt his home in the fashionable Greek Revival style. Standing halfway between Dallas and Waxahachie, the house became a welcome stop where travelers drew water and camped by the well.