Pine Tree Cumberland Presbyterian Church
Longview, Gregg County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Organized in 1847. First church in Gregg County; one of oldest in Texas in continuous service. Named for large pine tree (now removed) under which services were held and where Mrs. A. T. Castleberry taught the first Sunday School class. Charter members were Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Soloman Awalt; Messrs. and Mmes. A. T. Castleberry, J. T. Echols, Jesse Freeze, Benj. Fuller, John Rodden and Milton Starnes; J. W. Barnes and James R. White. First church was a log house; present structure built 1932; the educational building, 1950.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Organized in 1847, this Cumberland Presbyterian congregation was the first church in what became Gregg County and ranks among the oldest in continuous service in Texas. Early worshippers gathered beneath a great pine tree, where Mrs. A. T. Castleberry taught the county's first Sunday School class—the tree that later gave the church its name. From a first sanctuary of logs the congregation grew into the frame structure raised in 1932 and an educational building in 1950.
Why it matters
As one of Texas's oldest continuously active churches, it marks how frontier faith communities became the enduring social anchors of newly settled East Texas.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Elmira Chapel Cumberland Presbyterian Church
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This East Texas congregation grew out of Sunday School classes that Pine Tree Cumberland Presbyterian Church began holding in the Spring Hill Schoolhouse in the late 1880s. Organized in the 1890s under its first resident pastor, the church took its name from Elmira Castleberry, matriarch of a prominent pioneer family whose sons served as founding elders and donated land and materials for a combined school and church building in 1897-98. The congregation remained active in community and missionary work for generations.
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