Old
Baptist
Old Methodist
Churches
Old Montgomery Baptist Church
Location: Pond and Caroline streets
Location: Pond and Caroline streets
Baptists in Montgomery organized a
fellowship in 1850 and purchased land at this site the
same year. In 1853, the Rev. Thomas Chilton became the
church's first full-time pastor. This vernacular Gothic
revival sanctuary was constructed in 1902, during the
pastorate of O. P. Stark, who is said to have designed
the building himself. A 1918 storm destroyed the upper
part of the steeple, and an education wing was added in
the 1940s. The congregation met here for worship until
1979. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1985.
Old Methodist Church and
Churchyard
Location: Pond Street, just north of Texas 105
Location: Pond Street, just north of Texas 105
In Jan. 1839, the Rev. Isaac
Strickland organized a Methodist Church whose members
soon built a log meetinghouse on this site donated by
founders of the town of Montgomery. The churchyard came
into use for burials during the 1840s. When Pastor G. W.
Rabb was dying in 1851, he requested burial beneath the
altar of the frame church then being built to replace
the log cabin. His grave and a monument commemorating
pioneer circuit riders now (1976) mark the original
Methodist Church site. The church and the nearby
parsonage, which is said to have been the first
Methodist parsonage built in Texas, were relocated in
1908. A tabernacle later erected beside the cemetery has
also been demolished. A stone in this cemetery
commemorates a soldier of the American Revolution who
helped settle this county and died here. Churchyard
burials included veterans of the War of 1812, the Texas
War for Independence, Mexican War, and Civil War, as
well as many other pioneers, state and county officials,
merchants, ministers, and physicians. In some of the
unmarked graves are travelers who died here among
strangers. Although a new cemetery opened in 1868, this
one was also used until no space remained.
