Sharp Presbyterian Church
Buckholts, Milam County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This church traces its history to 1872, when the Mt. Herman Cumberland Presbyterian Church was founded. It was divided into the Davilla and Leachville congregations in 1893. The Leachville church was renamed Sharp in 1902, the same year this structure was built. The vernacular church building, exhibiting influences of the Italianate style of architecture, features a truncated tower, window hoods, and horizontal milled siding. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1988
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This Milam County congregation traces to the 1872 founding of the Mt. Herman Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which split into the Davilla and Leachville congregations in 1893. The Leachville church was renamed Sharp in 1902, the same year the present building went up—a vernacular structure with Italianate touches, a truncated tower, window hoods, and horizontal milled siding.
Why it matters
The little church charts how frontier Presbyterian congregations divided and re-formed as settlement spread, leaving behind modest but distinctive rural sanctuaries.
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Nearby & related markers
Sharp
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In the fertile blackland prairie of Milam County, settlers drawn by the rich soil began putting down roots in the years just after the Civil War. By the 1890s a store, a blacksmith shop, and a cotton gin had knit the scattered farms into a recognizable community, and when the post office opened in 1901 the place took the name Sharp to honor a nearby physician. Cotton drove the local economy, and the tight-knit community endured well enough to launch an annual reunion in 1978.
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The oldest marked grave here dates to 1880, and in 1882 John and M. L. Gordon deeded land for Mt. Zion Presbyterian Church with its western half set aside for burials. After the church was moved and demolished, the cemetery endured for the Sharp community, its early stones marking many children and infants. A caretaking association formed in 1949, and by the 21st century nearly 400 graves lay here.
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