Pine Tree Cumberland Presbyterian Church

The Cumberland Presbyterian history of the church says it was organized on October 10, 1847 by the Rev. Solomon Awalt with fifteen charter members, when the site was still in Upshur County. A log church was followed in 1858 by a frame building that stood for 74 years. The congregation ran a school until 1932, when it donated half its property to the new Pine Tree Independent School District. Awalt served as pastor until 1872, and J. T. Echols was session clerk from 1847 to 1869.

What the plaque says

Pine Tree Cumberland Presbyterian Church Organized in 1847. First church in Gregg County; one of oldest in Texas in continuous service. Named for large pine tree (now removed) under which services were held and where Mrs. A. T. Castleberry taught the first Sunday School class. Charter members were Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Soloman Awalt; Messrs. and Mmes. A. T. Castleberry, J. T. Echols, Jesse Freeze, Benj. Fuller, John Rodden and Milton Starnes; J. W. Barnes and James R. White. First church was a log house; present structure built 1932; the educational building, 1950. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• East Texas Oil Museum — 11 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.
• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 21 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• Starr Family Home State Historic Site — 25 mi
  Maplecroft, the 1871 Greek Revival house Frank Starr built in Marshall, with Ruth Starr Blake's glass and china, an 1880s kitchen restored in 2019 and a retirement home built for a formerly enslaved person.
• Texas and Pacific Railway Depot and Museum — 26 mi
  The only surviving building of the Texas and Pacific shops at Marshall, a 1912 Mission Revival depot saved from demolition in the 1990s, still an Amtrak stop, with a railway museum and a Mikado locomotive.

More markers nearby

• Wartime Home Industry — 1.2 mi
• Longview — 1.3 mi
• Gregg County Discovery Oil Well, F. K. Lathrop A-1, Aransas Fuel Oil Co. — 1.6 mi
• Rockwall Farm — 2.3 mi