First United Methodist Church of Hewitt
Hewitt, McLennan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Methodist settlers in this area worshiped at Stanford Chapel, organized about 1875 eight miles west of Hewitt. Hewitt Baptists and Methodists formed a union Sunday school in town sometime before 1895. The Northwest Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church assigned the Rev. Stephen W. Turner to the newly formed Hewitt circuit in 1900 and the Hewitt Methodist Church was organized that year. Stanford Chapel disbanded in 1912; some of its members joined Hewitt Methodist Church. The Stanford Chapel tabernacle was moved to Hewitt in 1922 and used for summer revivals for several years. The Hewitt Methodist Church became a full station in 1953. Celebrating its centennial in the year 2000, the congregation counts among its members descendants of its founding families. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Methodist settlers around Hewitt first worshiped at Stanford Chapel, organized about 1875, and shared a union Sunday school with local Baptists before the Northwest Texas Conference formed a Hewitt circuit in 1900. The Hewitt Methodist Church took shape that year, absorbing members of Stanford Chapel when it disbanded in 1912 and even moving its tabernacle into town for summer revivals. The congregation became a full station in 1953 and marked its centennial in 2000.
Why it matters
The church's roots reflect how Methodist circuit-riding and camp-meeting traditions planted lasting congregations across rural Texas.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- ¡ Stephen W. Turner
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Youngblood Memorial Presbyterian Church
Robinson, TX
In December 1874 the Rev. Samuel King led twenty-one former members of Waco's First Presbyterian Church to organize the second congregation in the community of Robinsonville, later Robinson. The church grew quickly at first, meeting in the local schoolhouse until it built its own home in 1878, then declined in the 20th century to just twenty-one members by 1942. Revived after World War II, it received a new building in 1956 funded by two benefactors honoring their mothers, and was renamed Youngblood Memorial in their memory.
Cobbs Walker Cemetery
Waco, TX
Begun in 1853 with the burial of an infant daughter of county judge John Allen Cobbs, this small family plot grew into a private cemetery in the years when central Texas was still a young frontier of the recently annexed state. Such family burial grounds were common where settlers put down roots far from established churchyards, marking both loss and permanence on newly claimed land.
Waco
Waco, TX
Founded in 1849 and named for the Waco Indians who had lived along the Brazos, the city grew from a frontier settlement into a hub of Central Texas. In the Civil War it sent men to both state frontier defense and the Confederate Army and counted five Confederate generals among its residents. Today it anchors the region as home to Baylor University, Paul Quinn College, and the Heart O'Texas Fair.
Thomas Hudson Barron
Waco, TX
Born in Virginia in 1796, Thomas Hudson Barron fought at the Battle of New Orleans with the Kentucky Militia before joining the stream of settlers into Mexican Texas, appearing in Stephen F. Austin's 1831 registry of families. As a Ranger captain he oversaw the building of Fort Fisher on the Brazos in 1837 and became one of the earliest settlers of what would grow into Waco, later serving as the county's first court clerk. A street, a school, and a creek in the city still carry his name.