First Methodist Society, Dallas County's

The log cabin on Isaac Webb's land sat inside a larger story. The Handbook of Texas says Farmers Branch held the first office of the Peters colony's Texan Land and Emigration Company in 1845, and that advertising across Europe and the United States made it the best-known Dallas County town of the 1840s. Webb, who by that account arrived in 1842, became the community's first postmaster on January 5, 1848. The post office closed in 1866 and returned in 1875. A school began in the church in 1846, a year after the circuit started.

What the plaque says

First Methodist Society, Dallas County's (Webb Chapel United Methodist Church) Founded in Republic of Texas. Isaac Blackman Webb (1802 - 80), after moving his family from Missouri to the Peters Colony in 1843-44 winter, appealed for a visit by a missionary. On March 19, 1844, in log cabin of his brother-in-law, William M. Cochran, a worship service was held by the Rev. Thomas J. Brown, the first known Methodist minister to visit the Colony. On May 5, 1845, circuit services were begun by the Rev. Daniel Shook in Webb's Cabin, and a society was formed. The charter members: Nancy Jane Hughes Cochran (Mrs. William M., said to have been first professing Methodist in the Colony), M. Franklin and Margaret Fortner, and Isaac and Mary Hughes Webb. An 18' x 18' log cabin was built on Webb's land in springtime 1846, as the Colony's first church. The Rev. Joab H. Biggs was first (1847-48) pastor. The hewn-log cabin also served as schoolhouse, public meeting hall, and post office for community. Some local Methodists in 1850s met Cedar Springs members halfway, and built Cochran Chapel (5.3 mi. SE). Webb Chapel Cemetery (1.8 mi. SE) marks site where the others built a frame church in 1877. A second frame building of 1903 was used until present sanctuary was erected in 1955 to house this church body with a record of continuous services since 1845. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dallas Museum of Art — 11 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.
• The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza — 11 mi
  A plow-company warehouse of 1903, identified by the Warren Commission as the building Oswald fired from, now a museum on its sixth and seventh floors above Dealey Plaza.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 12 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 13 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• First Baptist Church of Farmers Branch — steps away
• Texian Land and Emigration Company — steps away
• Keenan Cemetery — steps away
• David Myers — steps away