Hemphill First United Methodist Church
Hemphill, Sabine County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Hemphill First United Methodist Church In 1858, the same year Hemphill became county seat of Sabine County, local residents formed a Methodist society. Brother John C. Wollem preached at the early gatherings and served until 1870. The young church held services in the Methodist meetinghouse on Masonic grounds. In 1882, as a Methodist Episcopal Church, South, congregation, members acquired this site and constructed a new sanctuary. Church members built a second sanctuary in 1922; a third was built in 1966. The congregation has served Hemphill through groups within the church. A women's group first formed in 1910, and youth scholarship and other outreach programs continue to connect church members to their community. (2003)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1858, the very year Hemphill became the seat of Sabine County, local residents gathered to form a Methodist society, meeting first on Masonic grounds before acquiring this site in 1882. Successive sanctuaries rose in 1882, 1922, and 1966 as the congregation grew alongside the town. Women's groups, youth scholarships, and outreach programs have kept the church woven into community life for well over a century.
Why it matters
Frontier churches were the civic and social anchors of new county seats, binding scattered settlers into a community long before other institutions took hold.
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Related people
- · John C. Wollem
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hemphill
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Sabine County organized the town of Hemphill in 1858, naming it for Texas Supreme Court Justice John Hemphill and moving the county seat to the county's center on land surveyed from the Slaughter tract. A post office, courthouses, a bank, and Sabine Valley University followed, while the nearby Knox Sawmill drove steady growth into the twentieth century. When the mill burned in 1937 and postwar migration pulled people toward cities, Hemphill's population declined, though it remains the seat of Sabine County government.
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