James Madison McCloud

Duane's take

The way I heard it, it comes straight off the official marker, so here's how the story goes. James Madison McCloud was born in Tennessee in 1845, and if you're the kind of person who thinks a man's origins don't follow him, well, McCloud is here to prove you wrong. He served with an Alabama cavalry unit during the Civil War, and when that chapter closed, he had more road ahead of him than behind.

In 1881, he loaded up his wife Ruth Elizabeth, she was a Sampley before she was a McCloud, and their children, and he pointed the whole family toward Texas. That spring, not long after they settled in around the Bryson vicinity, McCloud did what McCloud apparently did: he got to work. Three miles east of where he'd put down roots, out at Cottonwood Springs, he established a church.

That congregation would grow into what became the Bryson United Methodist Church. Now, McCloud was a farmer and a preacher, which means he knew both how to work the ground and how to work a crowd. And he did not slow down.

He rode the Methodist circuit across Northern Texas and Southern Oklahoma for fifty-three years. Fifty-three years of dusty roads, creek crossings, and congregations waiting on a preacher who always showed up. He died in 1934, at his home in Bryson, the same town where that first church had taken root all those decades before.

This marker was dedicated by four of his grandchildren: E. C. McCloud, W.

L. McCloud, Grace Reynolds, and O. M.

McCloud. Seems like the family wanted to make sure Jack County didn't forget the circuit rider who never stopped riding.

What the marker says

Tennessee native James Madison McCloud (b. 1845) served with an Alabama cavalry unit during the Civil War. In 1881 he moved to Texas with his wife Ruth Elizabeth (Sampley) and children. Shortly after settling in the Bryson vicinity in the spring of that year, he established a church at Cottonwood Springs (3 miles east), which became the Bryson United Methodist Church. A farmer and preacher, McCloud served for fifty-three years as a Methodist circuit rider in Northern Texas and Southern Oklahoma. He died in his home at Bryson in 1934. (1981) Incise on back: Dedicated by the following grandchildren: E. C. McCloud, W. L. McCloud, Grace Reynolds, and O. M. McCloud