DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, as best as Duane can lay it down for you. Late in the year 1880, somewhere in the hill country of Lampasas County, a preacher named Reverend McCall Smith walked into the home of L. Jasper and Mary Ann Townsen, and nineteen charter members walked in right behind him.
Now, nineteen people and a reverend in somebody's parlor might not sound like much, but what they did in that room was stand up a church. They called it the Pleasant Valley Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and from that first meeting they went on holdin' services wherever they could find a roof or a reason. Sometimes that was a schoolhouse.
Sometimes it was nothing but a brush arbor, four poles and some branches between them and the open Texas sky. That was church enough. Then came 1903, and the congregation did something a little grander.
Out on the camp grounds west of Adamsville, they erected what they called the tabernacle. A proper gathering place. People remembered it.
Years passed, and in 1917 this very meetinghouse was built. Then in 1946, that old tabernacle, the one that had stood on those camp grounds for more than four decades, was moved here and used for several years right alongside the building that would carry the story forward. The final chapter of the name came in 1958, when a merger brought this congregation into the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.
One home, nineteen members, a brush arbor, and a tabernacle that refused to be left behind. Some things just keep movin' toward where they belong.
What the marker says
In late 1880, The Rev. McCall Smith and 19 charter members met in the home of L. Jasper and Mary Ann Townsen. They organized the Pleasant Valley Cumberland Presbyterian Church and held services in a schoolhouse or under a brush arbor. In 1903 "the tabernacle" was erected on camp grounds west of Adamsville. This meetinghouse was built in 1917 and the tabernacle was moved here in 1946 and used for several years. After a 1958 merger, this congregation became part of the United Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.