First United Methodist Church of Mount Vernon
Mount Vernon, Franklin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Organized 1855, with 13 charter members: Mrs. Joel Arrington, Capt. and Mrs. Baker, Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Matthews, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson Parchman, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Wylie Parchman, Mr. and Mrs. John D. Parchman, and Squire and Mrs. C. S. Yates. The group first met south of town in Joe Wylie Parchman's home; later in a Masonic Hall; then in 1875 bought this site and built a meetinghouse. A larger frame building was erected n 1896-97. Present edifice was completed in 1930; educational building in 1953. This church body has given at least four men to the ministry. (1975)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This Methodist congregation organized in 1855 with thirteen charter members, first meeting in Joe Wylie Parchman's home south of town, then in a Masonic hall, before buying this site and building a meetinghouse in 1875. Successively larger buildings followed—a frame church in 1896–97, the present edifice in 1930, and an education building in 1953. Over its long life the church has sent at least four of its own men into the ministry.
Why it matters
The steady growth of this pre–Civil War congregation reflects how frontier Texas communities put down permanent roots through the churches they built and rebuilt across generations.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Baptist Church of Mount Vernon
Mt. Vernon, TX
Organized on October 5, 1849, under the Baptist missionary William M. Pickett, this congregation first gathered in a log building east of what is now the Franklin County Courthouse, only a year after the Mount Vernon post office opened. Originally called New Liberty, it took the name Mount Vernon Baptist Church in 1870. Its early roll included the Rev. Joshua F. Johnson, who would sit as a delegate at the 1861 Secession Convention in Austin.
The Wright-Vaughan House
Mt. Vernon, TX
Dr. William C. Wright, a North Carolinian who came to Mt. Vernon in 1850, was the town's first physician, and around 1870 he built this house, converting his earlier home into a hospital that served the community into the mid-20th century. The family passed the home down through daughters and granddaughters before it was purchased and restored in the 1970s. It preserves the memory of frontier medicine in a small East Texas town.
Franklin County Courthouse
Mt. Vernon, TX
Mt. Vernon was platted in 1849 and chosen county seat when Franklin County was created in 1875, progressing from a wooden courthouse to a brick one by 1878. A fight over financing a new courthouse without a public vote climbed all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, which in 1911 upheld the county's method — and within days commissioners awarded the contract for this building, completed in 1912.
Joshua Foster Johnson
Mt. Vernon, TX
Arriving from Tennessee in 1845, Joshua Foster Johnson settled near the future Mount Vernon and helped found the town—first called Keith—in 1848. In the Third Texas Legislature he sponsored the bill establishing the Mount Vernon Male and Female Academies, an early step toward public schooling, and he sat in both the 1861 Secession Convention and the 1875 Constitutional Convention. A Baptist pastor as well, he helped organize the Mount Vernon Baptist Church.