Woods Methodist Church
Woods, Panola County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Organized as Methodist Church Concord; had a house of worship before 1858. Present site was deeded to church Nov. 28, 1876, by E. S. Hull. This building was erected by men of community in winter of 1876-1877. About 1900 name was changed, to conform to local post office (named for first postmaster, Theodorick B. Wood, appointed Jan. 16, 1854). This church is one of oldest buildings in Panola County still in use. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1970
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This Methodist congregation, first organized as Concord, had a house of worship before 1858, and community men raised the present building over the winter of 1876–1877 on land deeded by E.S. Hull. Around 1900 it took the name of the nearby post office, itself named for the community's first postmaster. Still in use, it is among the oldest buildings in Panola County.
Why it matters
A church built by neighbors' own hands and still standing after nearly 150 years embodies the enduring institutions that anchored settlement across rural Texas.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · E. S. Hull
- · Theodorick B. Wood
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Old Center Cemetery
Carthage, TX
Old Center Cemetery began in 1856 on land donated by community pioneer James Rowe, a veteran of the Texas War for Independence whose own 1868 grave is among its oldest. The earliest marked burial, that of Arminta C. Cash, dates to 1865, and the grounds hold some 400 marked graves alongside many unmarked ones. Descendants of the original donor have expanded its boundaries over the generations.
James Rowe
Old Center, TX
James Rowe came to the Mexican frontier of Texas from North Carolina and took up arms in the 1836 revolution that won Texas its independence. A prosperous tanner, he helped organize newly created Panola County in 1846, served a term in the young state's legislature, and donated the ground where this cemetery now stands. His story is a compact portrait of the settler-soldiers who turned a contested borderland into an American state.
Ramah Cemetery
Tenaha, TX
The Ramah community grew from the 1870s homestead of William Tell and Mollie Pou, who helped found Ramah Baptist Church in 1874 and gave its name — a biblical 'high place' — to the settlement's log church, school, store, and cotton gin. The cemetery formally deeded in 1909 holds more than a thousand graves, including over a hundred veterans spanning the U.S.-Mexican War through the Korean Conflict. Among them lies George E.B. Peddy, elected to the legislature while still a University of Texas student and a two-time U.S. Senate candidate decorated in both World Wars.
First United Methodist Church of Tenaha
Tenaha, TX
This Methodist congregation was among the first institutions founded in Tenaha after the town sprang up in 1886 as a railhead for the Houston East & West Texas Railroad. Gathered from the older Woods and Ramah communities, its members were served for years by circuit-riding preachers and built their first sanctuary in 1890. The church gained its first full-time minister in 1946 and has long emphasized missionary work, with founders' descendants still worshiping here.