Churches and faith21 cards: 4 firsts, 3 claimed firsts and 14 beginnings
Congregations, churches and synagogues, and the cemeteries beside them.
- Tyler gets its first post officeOne of several starts in 1847, with a courthouse plan and a congregation.
- Marvin Methodist, called the first church in Smith CountyOrganized in 1848 by the Revs. Sam Box and Alexander Douglas.
- First Baptist Church of Tyler is organizedSix charter members, meeting in the log courthouse.
- The Methodists’ Sunday school, called “the first”In the home of Reverend Wells, 1852.
- Oakwood Cemetery’s oldest marked graveFour-year-old P. M. Scott, who died in 1852.
- The first known record of a Disciples of Christ churchAn 1859 deed for a red brick sanctuary.
- Missionary work begins what becomes Christ Episcopal ChurchIts first rector, Hungarian-born Emir Hamvasy, arrived in 1872.
- First Presbyterian Church is organizedIt first met in the Methodist church.
- St. James CME Church is organizedMeeting in a house on East Erwin; it later created Texas College.
- Second Colored Baptist Church, today’s True Vine, is foundedNear the railroad tracks, between North Bonner and Oakwood Cemetery.
- Christ Episcopal Church builds its first churchOn North Bois d’Arc at West Locust, with 34 members.
- Tyler’s Catholics become a parish200 members in 1880; many early parishioners were Irish railroad workers.
- Land is bought for a Jewish cemeteryBought by Hyman Liebreich, Abe Harris and Jacob Lipstate.
- Congregation Beth El is founded53 men; their first temple was dedicated in 1889.
- Calvary Baptist, the first known white suburban churchA mission in north Tyler; the mother church became First Baptist.
- Cedar Street Methodist is organized as Tyler City MissionIt began as a Sunday school in a new neighborhood north of town.
- St. James CME, the oldest surviving Black church building in TylerAt 408 North Border Avenue; bricked and remodeled about 1920.
- A brick church called the first in Texas built by Black TexansBethlehem Baptist, on West Front Street, 1891.
- Congregation Ahavath Achim is formedA wooden synagogue in 1910; Conservative from 1956.
- Church women start a day care for low-income familiesProtestant, Catholic and Jewish women, working together.
- Bethlehem First Baptist, Tyler’s first Black Baptist congregationIt first met in the basement of the Smith County Courthouse.