DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about New Hope First Baptist Church and Cemetery out in Williamson County. Now, picture Williamson County, 1848. Baptist worship may have been ringing out across this stretch of Texas even then — that's what the record suggests, anyway.
But a congregation that meets in the woods and a congregation that's formally chartered are two very different animals. It would take another twenty years before New Hope made it official. October 22, 1868.
The organizational meeting was held not in some grand hall, not in a finished church building, but in the home of James M. and Elizabeth Trammell — pioneers of the rural Block House community. Six charter members gathered under that roof, and what they built together they called the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church of Christ. Six people.
That's all it takes sometimes, when the intent is right. The Reverend Thomas F. Bacon was chosen as the first pastor, and the work began.
The church cemetery was first used in 1869 — just one year in — for the burial of Martha Elizabeth Inman, wife of deacon S. C. Inman.
The ground that would hold the community's memory had claimed its first soul. Other marked gravesites followed, settlers who had been prominent early leaders of both the church and the community around it. Now here's something worth pausin' on.
From 1871 all the way until 1919 — forty-eight years — the church building doubled as the public school. Generation after generation of children in the Cedar Park area learned their letters and their arithmetic in the same walls where the congregation gathered on Sundays. That's not a footnote.
That's a community holdin' itself together with whatever it had. The pastors who came through New Hope were no ordinary men. There was missionary J.
E. Hamilton, who died in Brazil of yellow fever — a man who carried his faith all the way to another continent and didn't come back. And there was the Reverend D.
E. Simpson, board member and first treasurer of the Texas Baptist Children's Home, a man who was both baptized and ordained right here at New Hope. His story, from the baptismal water to the treasurer's ledger, began on this very ground.
For over a century, the marker tells us, New Hope First Baptist Church has been instrumental in the development of the Cedar Park area. Six charter members in James and Elizabeth Trammell's home, and look what took root. That's the thing about new hope — it has a way of lasting.
What the marker says
Although Baptist worship services may have been conducted in this area as early as 1848, this church was not formally chartered until 1868. On October 22 of that year the organizational meeting was held in the home of James M. and Elizabeth Trammell, pioneers of the rural Block House community. Six charter members formed the New Hope Missionary Baptist Church of Christ, and the Rev. Thomas F. Bacon was chosen to serve as the first pastor. The church cemetery was first used in 1869 for the burial of Martha Elizabeth Inman, the wife of deacon S. C. Inman. Other marked gravesites include those of settlers who were prominent early leaders of the church and community. For over a century the New Hope First Baptist Church has been instrumental in the development of the Cedar Park area. From 1871 until 1919 the church building was also used for the public school. Pastors have included such leading Baptist ministers as missionary J. E. Hamilton, who died in Brazil of yellow fever, and the Rev. D. E. Simpson, board member and first treasurer of the Texas Baptist Children's Home, who was baptized and ordained here. (1983)