Site of Old North Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to honor every word. Way out in Nacogdoches County, there's a place where the roots go deep, and I mean deep, down into the very first chapter of Anglo-American life in this part of Texas. This is the story of the site of Old North Church.

Now, the name on the marker today is Old North Church, but the first name was Union Church, and that name carried a whole spirit inside it. Several denominations, neighbors who might have argued theology on a Tuesday, came together here to worship as early as 1836. Union Church.

You can hear the intention right in the syllables. By 1838, those congregations had gotten organized in the formal sense, and that same year a small log church was completed right on the spot. Ten acres for it, donated by a man named Dr.

John M. Sparks. Ten acres, given over, so a community could have a place to gather and a place to put down roots.

That little log church did its work, and the years moved on, and by 1852 a new structure was standing in its place, the one that would endure. The present structure, the marker calls it, dating from 1852. And all around that church, out in the graveyard on those ten donated acres, rest many of the leading Anglo-American settlers of Nacogdoches County.

The people who shaped this county are not gone, exactly. They're right there. The church that started as a union of neighbors, completed itself in timber in 1838, and stood again in a new form by 1852, keeps watch over them still.

What the marker says

First known as Union Church as several denominations joined here to worship as early as 1836. Organized in 1838. A small log church was completed that year on ten acres donated by Dr. John M. Sparks. The present structure dates from 1852. In its graveyard rest many of the leading Anglo-American settlers of Nacogdoches County.