DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just the same. Now, you ever wonder what it takes to get a church started out on the Texas prairie? Not just a building, a church.
A fellowship. People showing up, week after week, even when the nearest roof wasn't a church at all but a schoolhouse. That's where our story begins.
The year is 1887, and a fellowship calling itself the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, is getting organized in Royse City. No building yet. No steeple catching the light.
Just people with a purpose. And you know what a fellowship like that needs more than anything else? Somebody willing to ride.
Enter the Reverend James McDugald. Born in 1847, and if you do the arithmetic against his 1929 passing, the man lived a long life, which is just as well, because he had a lot of ground to cover. His circuit took him through Royse City, Blackland, Fate, and Mt.
Zion. Four communities. One rider.
Now, in the meantime, those early congregants weren't sitting idle. They were holding services in a schoolhouse, making do, as Texans have always made do, right up until 1890. That's when the fellowship acquired land on Church Street from a man named R.
A. McCasland. First piece of ground.
First real foothold. Then came 1904, and on that McCasland family property (same family, same land) they erected the first church building in Royse City. From a schoolhouse to a sanctuary, from a circuit rider's saddlebag to a structure that still stands in the record.
That's how a fellowship puts down roots.
What the marker says
This fellowship, first known as the "Methodist Episcopal Church, South", was organized in 1887. The Rev. James McDugald (1847-1929) became the circuit rider for Royse City, Blackland, Fate, and Mt. Zion. Services were held in a schoolhouse until 1890 when land on Church Street was acquired from R. A. McCasland for the first church building in Royse City. This structure, erected in 1904, is on property which also belonged to the McCasland Family. (1978)