First Methodist Church of Richland

Duane's take

The official marker's the source, and here's how Duane tells it. Now, you want to talk about something that has lasted, we are going to talk about Richland, Navarro County, and a church that was already old when your great-great-grandparents were young. Back in 1847, this was remote frontier.

Not the romanticized kind you see on postcards. The real kind, where building anything, let alone a congregation, took genuine grit and genuine faith. Two men took on that challenge: the Reverend J.

E. Ferguson and the Reverend J. G.

Hardin. By their efforts, the First Methodist Church of Richland was founded. Out there on the edge of the known world, they gathered people together and they made something stick.

Now here is where the story gets its weight. A lot of things get founded on the frontier. Forts, trading posts, towns with big dreams and short futures.

Most of them fade. Most of them become historical footnotes, a name on a marker and nothing more. But this congregation kept going.

And kept going. And kept going still. In 1966, the American Association of Methodist Historical Societies took notice and honored Richland with a distinction that says everything: the oldest continuing congregation in the Central Texas Annual Conference.

Founded 1847 on remote frontier. Still standing. Some things, it turns out, are built to outlast the frontier entirely.

What the marker says

Founded 1847 on remote frontier, by efforts of the Rev. J. E. Ferguson and the Rev. J. G. Hardin. In 1966 the American Association of Methodist Historical Societies honored Richland as the oldest continuing congregation in Central Texas Annual Conference.