Harmony Church

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm drawing straight from the official marker for Harmony Church in Freestone County. Now let me set the scene for you. Out in the Stewards Mill community, folks needed a place to gather and worship, and for a good while they made do with what they had.

Private homes, the schoolhouse, whatever could hold a congregation. That works for a season, but a community with any backbone starts thinking about something more permanent. Something that says, we are here, and we intend to stay.

So on October 7th, 1876, a gathering took place. The Awalts were there. The Bonners, the Robinsons, the Stewards, the Watsons, and others besides.

They met with a single purpose: to form an organization and erect a church building, one that different denominations could use on different days. No single congregation was going to stake a private claim. This house would belong to the whole community.

Now they moved fast. You give determined people a clear goal and a deadline only the weather can set, and things get done. By December 9th of that same year, 1876, Reverend Thomas Joel Bonner stood in a newly built church and preached the very first sermon inside those walls.

And when the preachin was done, something else happened right there in that building. The Texas Presbytery of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church organized on that spot, in that room, on that day. The building itself has held up about as well as the community's intentions.

A front-gabled rectangular plan, board and batten siding, paired entry doors with transom lights letting the daylight in above the threshold. One of the oldest church buildings still standing in all of Freestone County. Some places are built to last.

Harmony Church is one of them.

What the marker says

This historic sanctuary is one of the oldest church buildings in Freestone County. People of the Stewards Mill community held church services in private homes or in the schoolhouse prior to its construction. On Oct. 7, 1876, the Awalts, Bonners, Robinsons, Stewards, Watsons and others met to form an organization to erect a church building to be used by different denominations on different days. On Dec. 9, 1876, Rev. Thomas Joel Bonner preached the first sermon in the newly built church, and afterwards the Texas Presbytery of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church organized here. The front-gabled rectangular plan church features board and batten siding and paired entry doors with transom lights. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1965