Gum Spring Presbyterian Church (New Danville)
Kilgore, Gregg County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Named for nearby spring with gum log curb; organized Oct. 7, 1850, by the Rev. J. M. Becton. The 1850 roll: Mr. and Mrs. Meshack Barber, S. S. Barnett, Mrs. T. C. Barnett, Mr. and Mrs. C. W. Scott, Mr. and Mrs. Allen Sloan, Nancy Sloan, Mr. and Mrs. T. W. Templeton. Log church of 1849 burned on Dec. 31, 1857; present structure, built in 1858, housed Danville Masonic Lodge No. 101 and (1858-73) Danville Masonic Female Academy, the parent institution of Lon Morris College. Moving in 1874, congregation became the First Presbyterian Church of Kilgore.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1850 near a gum-log spring, this Presbyterian congregation built a log church that burned on the last day of 1857 and was replaced the following year. The 1858 building did double duty, housing a Masonic lodge and the Danville Masonic Female Academy — an institution that grew into Lon Morris College. When the congregation moved in 1874, it became the First Presbyterian Church of Kilgore.
Why it matters
It shows how frontier churches and fraternal lodges seeded the earliest schools of East Texas, planting the roots of a college that outlived the town that founded it.
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Related people
- · J. M. Becton
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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