DUANE
Duane's take
Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'm gonna tell it the way it deserves to be told. New Year's Day, 1840. Most folks ring in the new year with a little celebration and a promise they won't keep by February.
But in Galveston, a group of believers started something that intended to last a good deal longer than a resolution. They gathered in a place called the Academy — an old building sitting right on the northwest corner of what would become a storied intersection — and they organized the First Presbyterian Church. The man who pulled it together, Reverend John McCullough, became its first pastor.
Now, that's a way to spend a New Year's Day. The original building was finished in 1843, which is not nothing — you try constructing anything in a coastal Texas town in the 1840s and see how long it takes. That building served its congregation faithfully, and when 1872 rolled around, they started work on something bigger, something grander.
That present structure took its sweet time coming together, but by 1889, it stood complete. Then came 1885, and with it, the great fire. Fire in a nineteenth-century city is not a small thing — it moves with a kind of terrible intention, and it does not negotiate.
The church escaped. Escaped. And rather than simply counting its blessings and locking its doors, it opened them.
The schools that had burned needed somewhere to hold classes, and this church said come on in. That is not a small detail. That is character.
The storms came after that, as storms will in Galveston, and the church withstood them, one after another, until 1961 brought Hurricane Carla — and Carla was not in a withstanding mood. The church was heavily damaged. But here it still stood, and by 1962, it had been restored.
From a New Year's gathering in an old building in 1840 to a structure that survived fire, flood, and fury — that's not just a church. That's a Galveston story.
What the marker says
Organized New Year's Day, 1840, in the "Academy," an old building on the northwest corner of this intersection. Rev. John McCullough, church organizer, became pastor. Original building was finished 1843; present structure started 1872; completed 1889. Following its escape from the great fire of 1885, church housed classes from schools which had burned. It withstood various storms until it was heavily damaged by hurricane Carla, 1961; restored, 1962. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1968