Nita Thurman

The First Baptist Church of Hebron is one of the last remnants of one of Denton County’s earliest settlements.

Located on a hill at FM544 and Hebron Parkway, the red brick church was organized by settlers first brought to that far southeast corner of Denton County by the Peters Colony.

The Peters Colony, officially known as the Texas Emigration and Land Company, contracted with the Republic of Texas to bring families into Northeast Texas in the 1840s.

They lured settlers with such glowing descriptions advertising the Northeast Texas lands as “a country having a delightful climate, no chilling winds or driving snow, but one continuous spring and summer, with all manner of fruits and wild game in abundance, clear and beautiful streams of water with plenty of fish.”

Bridges Settlement, the oldest in Denton County, began to take shape in 1843, according to a history of Hebron by Betty Kelly Morris.

The company established its main office — a land office and settlers store — on Barksdale Creek.

All was not as promised, however. The Telegraph and Texas Register in February 1843 described “wretched conditions” in the new little colony — probably those “chilling winds” we often experience in February.

Some settlers hung on, however, and a little community grew. By the 1890s, the community had a name — Hebron — a post office, two passenger trains that came through town daily, an elementary and high school, bank, a cotton warehouse, three cotton gins — two at one time — and other businesses.

The first Baptist congregation organized a church at the Willow Springs School in 1883, and their church was first known as the Willow Springs church.

A Sunday school, Willow Springs Union Sabbath School, was begun in 1886.

The name changed to the Big Valley Baptist Church by 1894. Apparently the church was damaged by storm.

Church minutes from June 1895 show that donations were solicited for “the taking down and reconstructing in a more substantial manner the Ceme­tery Hill church house, which was blown down in the recent storm.”

The reconstructed building apparently was destroyed again by a “cyclone” in April 1924 and never rebuilt.

The congregation united with a nearby fellowship to become the Cemetery Hill Church and Union Sabbath School. The congregation relocated to Hebron to become today’s First Baptist Church of Hebron.

The town of Hebron itself, surrounded by Lewisville, Carrollton and Plano, surrendered most of its land to those cities in a series of annexations in recent years.

The red brick church remains, now surrounded by modern housing additions, busy streets and highways, and businesses, a solid reminder of earlier days.

NITA THURMAN is a resident of Shady Shores. She can be reached at nitathur@aol.com .