First Presbyterian Church of Leonard

Leonard's Presbyterians began as a New York colony. A church history by Ruth and Elizabeth Davis says a stockbroker, Tom Murphy, and a grocer, H. L. Parmele, both brothers-in-law of Samuel F. B. Morse, organized a Texas colonization effort in the early 1870s that required membership in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. Families rode immigrant trains with household goods in the front of the car and living quarters at the back, reached Sherman by rail and went on by wagon. Parmele settled Valley Creek about 1872.

What the plaque says

First Presbyterian Church of Leonard This congregation was organized as a mission of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., in 1875 at Valley Creek (3 mi. N) through the efforts of H. L. Parmele, the community's founder and leading merchant. The Rev. DeCosta Howard Dodson, a noted Christian educator, became the first pastor. After a spring storm damaged the church building in 1883, the congregation moved to the new town of Leonard, created by the coming of the Denison and Southeastern Railroad. They built the town's first church building on the corner of Houston and Main streets. In 1905 Leonard Presbyterian Church merged with the local Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which had been organized at Grove Hill (3.5 mi. NE) in 1870. The Rev. N. M. Grafton became the new pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, as it was named after the union. The church structure on this site was used for worship by the Cumberland Presbyterian congregation and continues in use today. Additional facilities were built as membership increased. Members here have included pioneer settlers and prominent community leaders who made significant contributions to the area's development and heritage. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 13 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 20 mi
  A Greenville museum of Hunt County's military heroes, including Audie Murphy, and of cotton, which keeps the engine of what it says was the world's largest inland cotton compress.
• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 26 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.

More markers nearby

• Dr. William Chamberlayne Jones — 0.3 mi
• Leonard — 0.3 mi
• Valley Creek — 2.6 mi
• East Shady Grove Baptist Church — 2.7 mi