First United Methodist Church
Kaufman, Kaufman County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Organized in February of 1845 as the Kingsborough Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The Rev. Wm. K. Wilson was first pastor. In 1850 Kingsborough (county seat) was renamed Kaufman. Present site was purchased and first building erected 1857, with The Rev. J. A. Scruggs as pastor. The second building, a traditional steepled, white frame structure, was built 1876 at cost of $400, with The Rev. O. P. Thomas as pastor. Present brick building was erected 1909 at a cost of $13,000. The Rev. A. R. Nash was pastor. It was redecorated 1968, with The Rev. E. H. Cole, pastor.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1845 as a Methodist Episcopal congregation in the town then called Kingsborough—soon renamed Kaufman—this church took root just as Texas joined the Union. From a first building in 1857 to a white-frame steepled sanctuary in 1876 and a substantial brick church in 1909, its successive buildings chart the growth of a North Texas county seat. Each stage was led by a named circuit-era pastor.
Why it matters
The congregation's unbroken life since statehood reflects how frontier churches anchored new Texas towns and grew alongside them into the twentieth century.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
This congregation was organized in February 1845, a pivotal year for Texas. The Republic of Texas was on the verge of joining the United States, and annexation was completed by the end of that year. North Texas was sparsely settled frontier, and new towns were forming as settlers arrived from the Southern states.
The church's original name places it clearly in its time. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, had just been formed after American Methodism split along sectional lines, largely over slavery. That division foreshadowed the national split of the Civil War more than a decade later.
On the frontier, Methodism spread largely through circuit-riding preachers who traveled between scattered settlements. Congregations like this one often began with a small group of believers and a pastor serving a wide area, and later grew into established town churches as the settlements around them grew.
People & events
The church began as the Kingsborough Methodist Episcopal Church, South, with the Rev. Wm. K. Wilson as its first pastor. At the time the town itself was called Kingsborough and served as the county seat. In 1850 the town was renamed Kaufman, and the church adopted the new name along with its community.
The congregation's history is traced through its buildings. In 1857, under the Rev. J. A. Scruggs, it bought the present site and put up its first building. In 1876, with the Rev. O. P. Thomas as pastor, it built a second church: a traditional white frame building with a steeple, which cost $400. That modest sum shows how much a small congregation could build with volunteer labor and local materials.
In 1909 the church built its present brick building for $13,000, under the Rev. A. R. Nash. The jump from a $400 frame church to a $13,000 brick one says a lot about how Kaufman and the congregation had grown in about thirty years. The building was redecorated in 1968, with the Rev. E. H. Cole as pastor, and is still in use.
Its place in the American story
This church's life spans the whole arc of Texas becoming part of the United States. Founded in the last months of the Republic, it grew through statehood, the Civil War and Reconstruction, and into the 20th century. Its history follows the history of Texas as an American state.
Its original name also points to one of the most important episodes in American religious history: the sectional split in Methodism in the 1840s. That split showed how deeply slavery and regional loyalties divided Americans, even in their churches. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, remained separate until 1939, when most of American Methodism reunited, and the modern name "First United Methodist Church" reflects later unions in the denomination.
Finally, the congregation's progress from frontier gathering to steepled frame church to substantial brick building follows a pattern repeated across the country. As small settlements became established towns, their churches grew and became landmarks of civic life as well as places of worship.
If you visit
Look closely at the brick church built in 1909. It is the third building on a site the congregation has occupied since 1857. Buildings like this one, from the early 20th century, often have stained glass, solid masonry and a design meant to show a town's confidence in its own future.
Imagine the earlier churches that stood here: first the 1857 building, then the white frame church with its steeple, built in 1876 for $400. Standing on the same ground, you're looking at more than 150 years of one congregation's history.
Kaufman is an easy drive southeast of Dallas and makes a pleasant stop for travelers exploring North Texas county seats. Since this is an active church, be respectful of services and gatherings, and take time to wander the historic center of town, which grew up alongside this congregation.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Wm. K. Wilson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mrs. William P. King
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Frances A. King came to the Republic of Texas alongside her husband, founder of King's Fort in 1840, and pioneered on the frontier with notable courage. After his death in 1846 she—by then Mrs. Tabor—campaigned to make Kingsborough the seat of the newly organized Kaufman County and won. In April 1851 she deeded 75 acres for the townsite and a matching timber tract to the county commissioners, and the fort's settlement grew into the town that shares the county's name.
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Isham Chisum was among Kaufman County's leading early citizens, representing it at the Texas Secession Convention in early 1861. He then rode with Col. Tom Green's Confederate cavalry in the New Mexico campaign and, as colonel of the 2nd Partisan Rangers in Walker's Division, fought at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill during the 1864 Red River Campaign that turned back a Federal invasion of Texas. He was a cousin of trailblazers Jesse Chisholm and cattle baron John Simpson Chisum.
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Kaufman County
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Created and organized in 1848 in the first years of Texas statehood, this county took the name of David Spangler Kaufman, a lawyer who reached Nacogdoches in 1837 and rose through the Congress of the Republic of Texas before winning a seat in the U.S. Congress. The marker stands in the county seat that also bears his name, a common frontier practice of anchoring a new county's identity to a favorite son. Kaufman's short life spanned the arc from independent republic to American state.