DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to honor every word. Now settle in, because this one starts with a man who fought for Texas and ends with a courthouse having to sort out what belongs to the living and what belongs to the dead. Captain Robert W.
Smith — veteran of the Texas Revolution, born in 1814, gone by 1851 — he donated land right here at this site back in 1845. Gave it over to a Cumberland Presbyterian Church. And the first building that went up?
A log chapel. Simple as that. But they weren't just holding Sunday services in it — those same walls doubled as a schoolhouse, children learnin' their letters in the same room folks were prayin' in come the weekend.
Now here's where the story takes a turn. By 1856, the property changed hands. It was traded — traded, mind you — to a congregation of Baptists who'd been worshippin' over in the nearby community of London, about four miles to the northwest.
That same year, 1856, they organized right here as Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church. And friend, that fellowship has been worshippin' on this ground ever since. But the story's got one more wrinkle.
The church and the cemetery sittin' right beside it — they'd been sharing this place so long that it took an actual court decree, in 1953, to legally separate the two. Some things, it turns out, don't untangle themselves. You need a judge for that.
What the marker says
Captain Robert W. Smith (1814-51), a veteran of the Texas Revolution, donated land at this site in 1845 for use by a Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The first building here, a log chapel, was also used for school classes. In 1856 the property was traded to a congregation of Baptists from the nearby community of London (4 mi. NW). Organized that year as Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church, the fellowship has continued to worship here. The church and adjacent cemetery were legally separated in 1953 by court decree.