DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just the voice passing it along. Way back in November of 1854, the Reverend S. G.
O'Bryan stood up in McLennan County and organized what would become the Bosqueville Baptist Church. Now, the charter members were Frank Broadus, N. W.
Brain, W. S. Gill, and Mr. and Mrs.
W. R. Sparks and Mrs.
S. F. Sparks.
Not a grand building to start, mind you. They gathered in a log schoolhouse. Plain walls, hard benches, and the kind of faith that doesn't ask too much of the furniture.
Later on, they moved their meetings to Bosqueville College, which was a step up, at least in name. Then came 1887, and here's where the story takes one of those turns. The Bosque Masonic Lodge and the church decided to do something together.
They jointly built a meeting house. Two different organizations, one shared roof. Could've been the beginning of something lasting.
It burned within four months. Four months. You couldn't write that with a straight face if it hadn't actually happened.
But these were not people who quit. The first real sanctuary was completed in 1895, and then the present one went up in 1917. And through all of it, the schoolhouse and the college and the joint building that the fire got, and the building they finally raised on their own terms, this congregation never missed a Sunday.
Not one. Worshiping without interruption since 1854, the marker says. One of the oldest rural congregations in all of McLennan County.
The fire didn't stop them. Nothing did. That's a congregation that knows how to keep a promise.
What the marker says
The Rev. S.G. O'Bryan organized this church in Nov. 1854. Frank Broadus, N.W. Brain, W.S.Gill, Mr. and Mrs. W.R. and Mrs. S.F. Sparks were charter members. They met in a log schoolhouse, and later at Bosqueville College. In 1887 the Bosque Masonic Lodge and this church jointly built a meeting house that burned within four months. The first sanctuary was completed in 1895; present one in 1917. One of the oldest rural congregations in McLennan County, this church has worshiped without interruption since 1854.