Watauga Presbyterian Church
Haltom City, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded as Willow Springs Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 1850s; reorganized 1867 by William, Mary, and Julia Carlton; M.B. Donald; William, Marthia, Samuel,and Nancy Evans; Syrena Stowel; Sarah Henderson; Margaret, Cornelia, James, and Drue Walker. Renamed in 1885.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This congregation began in the 1850s as Willow Springs Cumberland Presbyterian Church, gathered from a handful of North Texas pioneer families in the years before the Civil War. In 1867, amid the upheaval of Reconstruction, members including the Carltons, Evanses, and Walkers reorganized the fellowship, and it took the name Watauga in 1885. Its roll reads like a census of the small farming community that grew up around it.
Why it matters
Frontier churches like this were the social and spiritual anchors of settlement-era Texas, binding scattered homesteaders into lasting communities.
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Related people
- · William Carlton
- · Mary Carlton
- · Julia Carlton
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Twelve charter members organized this congregation in 1895 under the Rev. G. W. Green, building a sanctuary in 1902 on lots donated by G. W. Gunter. Over the following decades it launched missions, youth and women's groups, and even a daughter church at Shady Grove. Renamed First Baptist Church of Smithfield in 1958, it built a new sanctuary in 1962 and grew alongside the community now called North Richland Hills.
Alfred Madison Hightower
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Eli Smith
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Smithfield Cemetery
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