DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. Way back in 1845, a pioneer missionary Baptist minister by the name of Reverend Lemuel Herrin rode into what would become Henderson, Rusk County, and he began something. Herrin had come up from Tennessee, and whatever he had in mind, he planted a seed.
He wouldn't live to see it fully take root. Reverend Herrin passed in 1852. But the church, well, the church kept going.
In 1850, it was reorganized. Three men took up that work: Elders John B. Renfro and J.
O. Walker, and the Reverend Jesse Witt, who stepped in as the first pastor. When they counted heads that year, 1850, the total membership stood at twenty-one.
Twenty-one souls. Now in those early years, the fellowship wasn't working with much in the way of real estate. They shared a meeting place with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
Baptists and Presbyterians under the same roof. You could say they kept things neighborly. Over time, this congregation didn't just grow, it gave.
At least three other congregations have been sponsored by this one church, sent out into the world like branches off a long-lived tree. The present building was dedicated on April 25th, 1954, a proper house at last for a fellowship that had been gathering for over a century. And by 1976, when the marker was written, membership had grown to over eighteen hundred.
From twenty-one to over eighteen hundred. Reverend Herrin started something in 1845, and it did not stop.
What the marker says
Begun in 1845 by the Rev. Lemuel Herrin (d. 1852), pioneer missionary Baptist minister from Tennessee, this church was reorganized in 1850 by Elders John B. Renfro and J. O. Walker, and the Rev. Jesse Witt, who served as the first pastor. Total membership in 1850 was 21. In its early years, the fellowship shared a meeting place with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The present church building was dedicated April 25, 1954. At least three other congregations have been sponsored by this one. The membership has grown steadily in recent years to the current (1976) total of over 1800.