DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and I'm just the one passing it along. Now, eighteen thirty-nine. Texas isn't even a state yet — it's a republic, standing on its own two boots, still figuring out what it's going to be.
And right in the middle of all that, a man named Reverend John Haynie is already thinking about something longer-lasting than politics. He's founding a church. Haynie was born in 1789, which means by the time he plants this congregation in the Republic of Texas, he's pushing fifty years old.
That's not a young man's gamble — that's a man who knows exactly what he's doing. He would live another twenty-one years, until 1860, and somewhere in there, this little church took root and held. The first building was logs.
Of course it was. This is 1839 Texas — you built with what the land gave you. And that log church stood a mile north of where you'd find it today, sitting on land belonging to Andrew Deavers Houston.
Not the grandest sanctuary you ever heard of, but then again, the grandest things in Texas have a habit of starting modest. That first building gave way to a second, and the second gave way to a third. The one standing now — the third — went up in 1907.
By that point, the Republic was a memory, Texas had been a state for over sixty years, and the church Haynie founded had already outlasted empires. The plaque on that building was erected by the Houston descendants — Mr. and Mrs. E.W.
Schuhmann, she being Nellie Houston. The history itself was given by the Reverend Olin W. Nail, who was the pastor at the time of the telling.
So you've got a log church on borrowed frontier land, a republic that came and went, and a congregation that just kept going. Reverend Haynie planted something in 1839 that was still standing, still holding services, still worth marking. That's not a short story — that's the whole point.
What the marker says
Founded 1839, in the Republic of Texas by Rev. John Haynie (1789-1860). First church was of logs, and located a mile north, on land of Andrew Deavers Houston. This building, the third, was put up in 1907. Plaque erected by Houston descendants, Mr. & Mrs. E.W. (Nellie Houston) Schuhmann. History given by Rev. Olin W. Nail, Present Pastor. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1964