First United Methodist Church of Giddings
Giddings, Lee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded 1871 with 24 charter members; first congregation to be organized in community, before platting of town in 1872. The Rev. William C. Lewis was first pastor. Early trustees included W. H. Cherry, Thomas Cox, R. D. McClellan, P. H. Merchant, John W. Moore, S. R. Mullen, H. Petway, W. A. Rector, W. B. Seay, T. G. B. Willard. Lay delegate to 1902-03 annual conferences was B. J. Fletcher. First church building was erected in 1879. Originally part of a circuit, Giddings in 1938 became a station charge. Present sanctuary was built in 1957.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1871 with twenty-four charter members, this was the first congregation organized in Giddings — predating even the platting of the town in 1872 — under its first pastor, the Rev. William C. Lewis. The members raised their first church building in 1879, and the congregation grew from a stop on a preaching circuit into a full station charge by 1938. The present sanctuary dates to 1957.
Why it matters
The church's founding ahead of the town itself shows how frontier faith communities often came first, gathering settlers into a congregation before there was even a plotted town around them.
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Related people
- · Rev. William C. Lewis
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Lee County
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Straddling the Old San Antonio Road on land first surveyed for Moses and Stephen F. Austin's colony, Lee County became in 1854 the heart of Wendish settlement in America, when Pastor Johann Kilian led his Sorbian-speaking congregation from Central Europe to a new home here. Their school was the only one in the United States to teach in Wendish, a Slavic language that survives in the modern world chiefly here and in Australia. The county was organized in 1874 and named for Confederate general Robert E. Lee, with Giddings as its seat.