Fate Presbyterian Church

Duane's take

Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll tell it to you straight. Out on the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, back in the middle 1880s, a new settlement called Fate was just findin its footing. And right there in the middle of all that becoming, a group of Presbyterians decided it was time to get organized.

Eighteen individuals put their names to the charter: Leonards and Kales, McLendons and Coopers, Wilsons and Bonsels, Morgans, Holidays, and Sawyers. Families who were staking their claim on a place that hadn't fully decided yet what it was going to be. Now, in the early years, they didn't have a minister planted right there in Fate.

What they had was a circuit rider, a preacher who moved from congregation to congregation across the countryside, serving wherever the need called him. One of those early circuit riders was the Reverend J.A. Hornbeak.

And in 1894, while Reverend Hornbeak was serving this very congregation, the members decided it was time to stop gathering in borrowed spaces and build something of their own. The first sanctuary went up on Brown Street. And the man they put in charge of building it was a head carpenter by the name of H.A.

Kale, born in 1834, and not just any hired hand, mind you, but a charter member of that original eighteen. He'd helped start this church, and now he was raising its walls. That building served the congregation faithfully, right through into the early 1920s.

Then, in 1926, a new church building was completed at this very site; the one you might be looking at right now. More than a hundred years of Sundays. Families who came when Fate was nothing but a railroad stop and a hope, and stayed to become the community leaders and pioneer settlers the marker still sees fit to name.

The Fate Presbyterian Church didn't just survive the growin pains of a new Texas town. It was part of what made that town worth growin.

What the marker says

When Presbyterians organized this congregation in the middle 1880s, the community of Fate was developing as a new settlement on the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad. Among the eighteen individuals who chartered the church were members of the Leonard, Kale, McLendon, Cooper, Wilson, Bonsel, Morgan, Holiday, and Sawyer families. In the early years, a circuit rider served as minister of this and other area churches. One early circuit rider was the Rev. J.A. Hornbeak (d. 1939), who was serving as minister of the Fate Presbyterian Church in 1894 when the members constructed the first sanctuary. Located on Brown Street, it was built under the supervision of head carpenter H.A. Kale (1834-1921), a charter member of the congregation. The church continued to worship in the structure until the early 1920s. In 1926, a new church building was completed at this site. With historic ties to the earliest days of the Fate community, the Fate Presbyterian Church remains an important institution in Rockwall County. Church members have included many community leaders and pioneer area settlers. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986