DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the marker on this First Presbyterian Church in Williamson County tells it — let me walk you through it the way the record lays it out. Now, some congregations are born in grand sanctuaries with stained glass and pipe organs. This one got its start in somebody's living room.
The year was 1854, and the Reverend William Mumford Baker presided over the organizing of this congregation right there in the Round Rock home of Richard and Mary Agnes Sansom — she was born a Cooper, if you're keeping track of the family lines. A preacher, a parlor, and a purpose. That's how this story begins.
Things moved quick after that. By 1856, the church had made its way to Georgetown, and a man by the name of C.A.D. Clamp deeded a piece of ground at 4th and Myrtle streets — land that would hold not just a sanctuary, but one of the town's first schools.
That's two pillars of a community rising up from a single deed. Not bad for a congregation that was barely two years old. But then came the Civil War, and what the war did to this country it did to this congregation too.
In 1866, following that conflict, the membership split — right down the old fault line — into separate Northern and Southern congregations. Two churches where there had been one. And that division didn't heal fast.
It stretched on into the 1890s before the Northern church finally disbanded and sold the present building to the Southern congregation. Here's the thing about that building, though. Georgetown Presbyterians have been meeting inside it since 1873.
The split came and went. The decades stacked up. And that structure at 4th and Myrtle just kept standing, kept holding people.
The denominations themselves — Northern and Southern — didn't find their way back to each other until 1983, when they reunited as the Presbyterian Church USA. A hundred and seventeen years after that post-war fracture, they came back together under one name. Some wounds close slow.
But they do close.
What the marker says
The Rev. William Mumford Baker presided over this congregation's organization in 1854 at the Round Rock home of Richard and Mary Agnes (Cooper) Sansom. By 1856, the church was meeting in Georgetown, where C.A.D. Clamp deeded a site (at 4th and Myrtle streets) for a sanctuary and one of the town's first schools. In 1866, following the Civil War, the membership split into separate Northern and Southern congregations. The division continued into the 1890s, when the Northern church disbanded and sold the present building to the Southern congregation. Georgetown Presbyterians have met in this building since 1873. The Northern and Southern denominations reunited in 1983 as Presbyterian Church (USA). (2004)