Ebenezer United Methodist Church

A Texas State Historian's account of Walton Cemetery says Methodists and Baptists at Macedonia once shared a log church. Littleton Fowler organized a Methodist congregation there in 1843, and Isaac Reed and Lemuel Herrin organized a Baptist one in 1845. The two alternated Sunday services, and a field school for neighborhood children met a few months each year. The log church and school burned in 1880. The Baptists moved a few miles east toward Carthage, and Ebenezer Methodist Church was built after the fire. The Texas Freedom Colonies Project says Macedonia took its name from the 1845 Baptist church.

What the plaque says

Ebenezer United Methodist Church This congregation was organized at Old Macedonia (3 mi. E) in 1843, three years before the formation of Panola County. It is believed the church was formed through the missionary efforts of the Rev. Littleton Fowler, one of the earliest Protestant ministers in the Republic of Texas. In 1872 John Henry Ross deeded land at this site for the church and a school and cemetery. Known for a short time as Walton Church, Ebenezer United Methodist Church has served as a focal point for the surrounding rural community for well over a century. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tex Ritter Museum and Texas Country Music Hall of Fame — 6.4 mi
  Carthage's country music museum, with Tex Ritter's boots, guitars and saddles in a room styled like a movie theater, and exhibits on other Texas stars, Jim Reeves among them.
• East Texas Oil Museum — 29 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.

More markers nearby

• Holland Quarters Cemetery — 1.6 mi
• Isaac R. Youngblood — 3.2 mi
• Allison Chapel United Methodist Church — 4.6 mi
• Church Bethel — 4.8 mi