DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Cottage Hill Methodist Church and Cemetery, out here in Collin County. Now, before there was a building, before there was even a name on a deed, there were people. Pioneer people.
And they needed a place to worship. According to local tradition — and out here, local tradition carries weight — this Methodist Church traces its origins to religious gatherings organized by a Reverend John Culwell. He didn't hold them in a church, because there wasn't one yet.
He held them in his brother's house. His brother being one Andrew J. Culwell.
And that was about 1846. Then, a couple of years on, around 1848, Methodist campground meetings took root at a place called Honey Creek, just nearby. You can picture it — open sky, creek running, folks gathering under whatever shade the good Lord provided.
Now here's the thing about traditions: they don't always come with paperwork. The first time Cottage Hill Methodist Church shows up in an actual document — ink on paper, official record — is in the minutes of the Trinity Conference, held over in Plano, in 1874. There it is.
Named. Real. Seven years after that, in 1881, they finally put up a proper structure.
The land was donated by a man named F.F. Morrill, right here at this site. And H.H.
Sullivan served as pastor. But while we're standin' here, we ought to talk about what's just next door. The cemetery.
And cemeteries, when you read them right, tell their own kind of story. The earliest recorded interment at Cottage Hill Cemetery belongs to a woman named Martha Culwell, who died in 1870. Her gravesite sits at what you might call the quiet center of something older.
Surrounding her are a sizable number of early headstones — many of them bearing the name Culwell. And beyond those, a good many graves that have no names at all. Unmarked.
Waiting to be remembered by someone who no longer can. All of that suggests — and the marker is careful to say suggests — that this cemetery began as a family cemetery. The Culwell family.
The same family whose reverend started the gatherings, whose brother opened his home. Now, the church and the cemetery sit right next to each other, and during the 1880s and 1890s land was deeded to the Cottage Hill Church that's believed to have connected the two. But formally?
Officially? They parted ways in 1890, when the Cottage Hill Cemetery Association was established. Since then, the two have not been formally associated — neighbors, you might say, without a shared deed.
The church structure itself was renovated in 1946, and it continues to serve the Cottage Hill Methodist Church to this day. What started in a brother's front room, somewhere around 1846, is still standing. That's not nothing.
Out here in Collin County, that's just about everything.
What the marker says
According to local tradition this Methodist Church traces its origin to pioneer religious gatherings organized by the Rev. John Culwell and held in the home of his brother, Andrew J. Culwell, about 1846, and to the establishment of Methodist campground meetings held at nearby Honey Creek about 1848. The first documentary mention of Cottage Hill Methodist Church is contained in the minutes of the Trinity Conference held in Plano in 1874. A church structure was built on land donated by F.F. Morrill at this site in 1881; H.H. Sullivan served as pastor. The sizable number of early headstones bearing the name Culwell and the many unmarked graves surrounding the gravesite of Martha Culwell (d.1870), the cemetery's earliest recorded interment, suggests that the Cottage Hill Cemetery began as a family cemetery. Although located adjacent to each other and believed to have been connected as part of land deeded to the Cottage Hill Church during the 1880s and 1890s, the church and cemetery have not been formally associated since the establishment of the Cottage Hill Cemetery Association in 1890. The church structure, renovated in 1946, continues to serve the Cottage Hill Methodist Church.