Hemphill First United Methodist Church

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Hemphill First United Methodist Church, over in Sabine County. Now, some institutions just show up. Others arrive at exactly the right moment, alongside the town itself, and grow every time the town does.

This church is the second kind. The year was 1858, and Hemphill had just become the county seat of Sabine County. Same year.

Not the year after, not a decade later. The same year. Local residents looked around at their new county seat and decided it needed a Methodist society, and so they formed one.

Brother John C. Wollem was there at the start, preaching at those early gatherings, and he kept at it, faithfully, all the way until 1870. That young congregation didn't have a grand building to call home at the outset.

They held their services in the Methodist meetinghouse on Masonic grounds, which, if you stop and think about it, is a very Texan arrangement. You work with what the community has, and the community holds you up. Then came 1882.

The congregation was operating as a Methodist Episcopal Church, South, by then, and the members acquired this very site and constructed a new sanctuary. A home of their own, on ground they had claimed. But a church that's alive doesn't stand still.

Members built a second sanctuary in 1922, and then a third in 1966. Three sanctuaries across the decades, each one a marker of a congregation that kept growing, kept building, kept showing up for Hemphill. And it wasn't just Sunday mornings.

A women's group first formed in 1910. Youth scholarship programs, outreach programs, the kind of work that connects a church to the people living right outside its doors. That thread runs all the way to the present.

You know, a town and a church that are born in the same year have a way of growing into each other. Hemphill became a county seat, and this congregation became part of what it means to live there. That's not a coincidence the marker draws.

It's just a fact that lands heavy when you sit with it.

What the marker says

Hemphill First United Methodist Church In 1858, the same year Hemphill became county seat of Sabine County, local residents formed a Methodist society. Brother John C. Wollem preached at the early gatherings and served until 1870. The young church held services in the Methodist meetinghouse on Masonic grounds. In 1882, as a Methodist Episcopal Church, South, congregation, members acquired this site and constructed a new sanctuary. Church members built a second sanctuary in 1922; a third was built in 1966. The congregation has served Hemphill through groups within the church. A women's group first formed in 1910, and youth scholarship and other outreach programs continue to connect church members to their community. (2003)