Founding of the First Methodist Church
San Marcos, Hays County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On this site, in the log house of John D. Pitts (1797-1861), circuit rider A. B. F. Kerr (1823-81), on Aug. 5, 1847, organized the first church in Hays County. The congregation met here two years; later built a church on west side of the same block.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1847, in the log home of John D. Pitts, circuit rider A. B. F. Kerr organized the first church in newly created Hays County. The small congregation worshipped in the cabin for two years before building its own house of worship nearby.
Why it matters
The gathering marks the beginning of organized religious and community life in Hays County at the dawn of Texas statehood.
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Related people
- · John D. Pitts
- · A. B. F. Kerr
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First United Methodist Church
San Marcos, TX
Hays County's first church was organized on August 5, 1847, when circuit rider A. B. F. Kerr gathered nine charter members in the home of John D. Pitts. By 1849 the growing congregation met in a log house that served at once as church, courthouse, and school, braving wild animals and the dangers of the frontier to worship. A first building rose on this site in 1855, and the present Gothic Revival sanctuary was completed in 1893.
The Courthouses of Hays County
San Marcos, TX
When Hays County was organized in 1848, justice was dispensed from a log church-schoolhouse that doubled as a courthouse. Over the following six decades the county cycled through a frame building that burned in 1868, two limestone structures undone by shifting ground and fire, and finally the eclectic 1909 courthouse designed by Austin's C. H. Page & Brother that still presides over the San Marcos square. The story tracks the rise of a frontier county into an established seat of Texas government.
William W. Moon
San Marcos, TX
William W. Moon, orphaned in infancy in Alabama, came to Texas in 1838 and rode with the Texas Rangers, first seeing the San Marcos Springs during a running Indian fight in 1843. Enchanted by the country, he brought his family to build a cabin here in 1845, making the Moons the first permanent Anglo-American settlers of what became Hays County. His cabin hosted the county's first sermon and first school, and he later served in both the Mexican War and the Civil War while running a hotel, stage stop, blacksmith shop, and freight line.
Charles Cock Home
San Marcos, TX
Charles S. Cock built this limestone house in 1867, in the years when San Marcos was still a young frontier town finding its feet after the Civil War. A farmer who later served as mayor in the early 1880s, Cock raised his home from a mix of local materials—limestone, elm, pine, and cedar—the kind of hand-gathered construction typical of the Texas Hill Country.