United Methodist Church of Lexington
Lexington, Lee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Lexington Methodist Episcopal Church, South, appears in the records of the East Texas Conference as early as 1850, with the Rev. Jefferson Shook assigned as pastor. Its history, however, can be traced through the histories of four other Lee County churches. The Liberty Methodist Episcopal Church, South, met west of Lexington, and the two congregations shared the same pastor. When the church disbanded in the 1930s, some of the members joined this congregation. Tanglewood Methodist Episcopal Church, South, served the Tanglewood community (5 mi. N) During the 1930s the congregation sold its land and church building and forwarded the proceeds to the Lexington Church, and the few remaining members came into this congregation. The Early Chapel congregation met in the northern part of the county as early as 1850. Members of the dwindling fellowship voted to move their memberships to the Lexington Church in 1927. The German Methodist Church in Lexington was founded in 1882 with the Rev. Jacob Ott as first pastor. In 1939 the two Lexington Methodist congregations merged. With its membership additions over the years, the United Methodist Church of Lexington has grown to provide significant service and leadership to the community.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Methodist worship in Lexington reaches back to at least 1850, when the East Texas Conference assigned a circuit pastor to the settlement. Over the following century the congregation became a gathering point, absorbing members from a scattering of smaller Lee County churches—Liberty, Tanglewood, Early Chapel, and a German-language Methodist church founded in 1882—as each dwindled and folded in. The 1939 merger of Lexington's two Methodist bodies knit these strands into the single congregation that endures today.
Why it matters
The church's many mergers mirror the settlement, immigration, and slow consolidation of rural Central Texas communities across a hundred years.
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Related people
- · Jefferson Shook
- · Jacob Ott
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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