Covenant United Presbyterian Church

Duane's take

The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of Covenant United Presbyterian Church in Kaufman County. July of 1854, that's where it begins. The Reverend Richard O.

Watkins organized what was then called Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and before that founding year was even out, the congregation had raised its first building. You get the sense these were people who didn't wait around. The first pastor, the Reverend Dempsey W.

Broughton, was the kind of man whose ambitions ran wider than any single congregation, he was among those who helped found Trinity University. That's the company this little church kept right from the start. Now, the sanctuary that stands today went up in 1877, and it has outlasted more than a few chapters of this congregation's life.

When a national denominational merger came together in 1906, the church took on the name First Presbyterian. But the story of how it became Covenant, well, that's a tale of gathering in. In 1912, the Gastonia congregation was absorbed into the fold.

Then, more than half a century later in 1963, the Jiba congregation joined as well. And so the church that Reverend Watkins organized under one name in 1854 had, by 1963, grown wide enough to hold three congregations' worth of history and memory under the name Covenant United Presbyterian. The marker itself carries something personal on its back, a remembrance inscribed for Martha Jane and Jim Duncan, placed by their children, Bertha Duncan Lane and Herman H.

Duncan. A church that spans over a century, and the people who loved it enough to mark its place in the world. That's a congregation that knew how to hold on.

What the marker says

Organized July 1854 by The Rev. Richard O. Watkins, as Cumberland Presbyterian Church. First church building was erected in 1854-55. First pastor, The Rev. Dempsey W. Broughton, helped found Trinity University. Present sanctuary was built in 1877. Church took name "First Presbyterian" after national denominational merger in 1906. It became "Covenant" after absorbing Gastonia (1912) and Jiba (1963) congregations. Incise on back: Marker in memory of our parents, Martha Jane and Jim Duncan, by Bertha Duncan Lane and Herman H. Duncan Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1971