A History Of Dickens County: Ranches and Rolling Plains Page: 49
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Churches
In the Doox of Proverbs, Chapter 22, Verse 28,
is a statement which long has intrigued moral philo-
sophers because it seems to have an ageless mean-
ing. The verse, "Remove not the ancient land-
mark, which thy fathers have set."
Although addressed to the early Hebrews, the ad-
monition can apply with equal force to the people
of Dickens County. The children of Israel were a
"people set apart." They held a great ideal, they
trusted God, and when they permitted their altars
to crumble, they moved rapidly to their doom as a
nation.
There is little doubt that Dickens County has
filled a small role in Texas History. Our fathers and
Grandafthers led their families from their native
homes in the East to a new way of life. The early
settlers may not have all been idealists, but at heart
they were bound together in support of a great ideal.
They set certain landmarks for their children and
grandchildren, to respect and certain institutions for
them to honor and preserve. Among those institu-
tions were the home, the family, the school and the
church, religion, morality, education and freedom
have been intertwined in Dickens County from the
beginning. And we must not allow any one of them
to decay, else, we "remove an ancient landmark,
which our fathers have set."
In the beginning of Dickens County, where there
were two or three families in a community, our
fathers built a one teacher school and then had
church in the building. After several years, it
grew to be a larger school, unfortunately, as the
country became more urban than rural, disturbing
changes have occured. The "Acids of modernity"
have eaten away the foundation stones of our basic
institutions in the rural communities and that all
rural life have gone to the city.
The home and family have been under fire for
years, and both have admittidely suffered from the
blows of a materialistic civilization. The home no
longer is the center of family life as it once was,
and the family itself seems to be undergoing a process
of disintergration.
The schools, the handmaiden of democracy, which
supplements the home as an agent for the moral as
well as the intellectural training of the young, is
facing all sorts of problems.
As for the church, there is little doubt that while
it remains a powerful force for good in the nation,
no longer does it exercise the influence over the minds
of people it did in the early days. Millions now turn
elsewhere for guidance, in fact, there are those who
now regard silence with the same sense of reverence
that they once felt for religion.
Consciously or subconsciously we are removing
the ancient landmarks our fathers have set for us.
And unless we reverse the trend, there is reason to
be fearful that we will suffer the same fate which
has befallen other nations of the past, that when
they forgot God and bowed in worship before the
golden idols of materialism.
It is our prayer that the people of Dickens County
will never remove the anicent landmarks which our
fathers have set; that they will always put God first.
The religious background inherited by Dickens49
County is manifested in every community and town
in the County. The first church established in Dick-
ens County was the Baptist Church at Afton, then
known was Cottonwood. In 1888. Later settlers of
other denominations followed and they had their
Bibles in the wagons with their plows. One
early settler, L.G. Crabtree, of Dickens, brought
his new bride, and among her possessions was an
organ. There was no Baptist Church, so they held
services in their home.
The county has twenty-six congregations, and some
three thousand persons attend services. Dickens
County has a low rate of crime and juvenile de-
liquency, which can be attributed to the churches.
Thus, by establishing the church and living the
Word of God, the early settlers fulfilled their des-
tiny and left an early heritage to their children and
their children's children.
Dickens First Baptist
The First Baptist Church of Dickens was organized
in 1892. A missionary by the name of Steve Goff
helped to organize the church. Since the original re-
2ords have been destroyed or burned, there are only
three names of Charter Members available.
They were: Mr. L.G. Crabtree and wife, Martha,
and Mr. A.S. Cobb,
The church building was a two story structure,
with one room down stairs and one room up stairs.
The stairway was built on the outside of the Church.
The windows were oval, at the top, in both the up-
stairs and downstairs rooms.
The upstairs room of the church was used at times
for a meeting place for the Masonic Lodge and the
Eastern Stars,
In the 1930's the church was remodeled, putting in
new windows and using pressed wood on the inside
of the building and native rock on the outside, add-
ing four Sunday School rooms to the north end of the
building, and adding a Baptistry.
About 1956-57, an annex was added to the church
building with modern kitchen facilities and bathrooms
being added, and three more Sunday School class
rooms were partitioned off from the annex.
The annex has been a valuable asset to the com-
munity, and the surrounding territory. It is used
for serving meals for funerals, and for community
meetings as well as the church's activities.
The Baptist Church is the only church in Dickens
at the present time who has a resident minister,
Brother D.J. Peters came to the church in October
1966, and lives in the modern parsonage located
two blocks from the church.
McAdoo Church Of Christ
The Church of Christ first met in the school
building; they did not have a preacher, just mem-
bers. In 1925 they built a church house, the first
one in McAdoo. The first sermon preached in it was
Bro. Hukkel, from Crosbyton. The first meeting was
in August, the same year, with Bro. Schultz from
El Paso doing the preaching. There were 32 res-
ponses. Some of the early families were the Earl
Neeley's, Brantleys, Sam Fox, Perry's, McLaughlins
and Johnsons.
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Arrington, Fred. A History Of Dickens County: Ranches and Rolling Plains, book, 1971; [Dickens, Texas]. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth61098/m1/67/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .