McCraw's Chapel

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm following the official marker text on this one, so let me lay it out for you just as the record has it. Out on the blackland prairie of Fannin County, before there was a proper building, before there was even a name on the place, there was a man named Ezekiel Phillips Warren and a front room full of neighbors with something on their minds. The year was 1859.

Warren, born in Tennessee back in 1828, had moved to this part of Texas in 1856, and when the local Methodist faithful needed somewhere to gather and organize a congregation, he opened his home. For several years, that home was the church. Now, a congregation needs more than a parlor.

It needs ground. And in 1877, the land came. Two acres, donated by William Bain McCraw and others, set aside for a church and a cemetery.

The Reverend N. A. Keen was serving the Dodd City Circuit at the time, and this little community fell under his care.

McCraw himself, a Kentucky-born man who had served in the Confederate Army, would not live long enough to see much of what grew from his generosity. He died not long after, born in 1841 and gone by 1878, and he was the first to be buried in the very cemetery he helped bring into being. You sit with that a moment.

The congregation kept growing. By 1887 they purchased four more acres right next to the original grounds. And in the late nineteenth century, August on that prairie meant something: ten days straight of camp meetings, right there on the church grounds.

Ten days. While those same years, John M. Raiden was teaching school inside the church building itself, so the place was pulling double duty, house of worship and house of learning all at once.

Then 1918 came, and a tornado took the structure clean down. The congregation moved their meetings to the nearby schoolhouse and kept on. Within a year, by 1919, a new building was standing, and for a time it held the community together the way a good anchor holds a vessel.

But the years have a way of testing things. Membership stood at 170 in 1933. By 1963 it had fallen to 38.

In 1966 the church was disbanded. The building itself was razed in 1983. And yet.

The ground is still there. Every first Sunday in May, people come back to it for an annual community homecoming. No building, no congregation, no minister making the rounds of any circuit.

Just people returning to the place where Ezekiel Warren once opened his door, where William Bain McCraw gave his two acres and then gave everything else, too. Some stories end. Some just change what they're made of.

What the marker says

Methodist Church and Cemetery Settlers farming the blackland prairie in this area gathered in the home of Ezekiel Phillips Warren (1828-1903) in 1859 to organize a Methodist congregation. Warren, a native of Tennessee who moved here in 1856, hosted the group for several years. In 1877 two acres of land for a church and cemetery were donated by William Bain McCraw (1841-1878) and others. The Rev. N. A. Keen was then minister for the Dodd City Circuit, which included the church here. McCraw, a native of Kentucky who served in the Confederate Army, was the first to be buried in the cemetery. An additional four acres adjacent to the church grounds were purchased in 1887. In the late 19th century, 10-day-long camp meetings were held on the church grounds in August. John M. Raiden taught school in the church building during the same years. A tornado destroyed the structure in 1918, and meetings were held in the nearby schoolhouse. A new building was erected in 1919, serving as an anchor for the congregation and the community. Membership fell from 170 in 1933 to 38 in 1963, and the church was disbanded in 1966. The building was razed in 1983, but the grounds continue to host an annual community homecoming on the first Sunday in May. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986