Texas Historical Marker #06941
Ben Franklin Methodist Church. Founded 1854 by reports of "local preachers" Dan Clower and John B. Craig (former law partner of John B. Denton, for whom Denton County was named). A circuit rider, Rev. Bennett Elkins, was named Dec. 5, 1854, to serve Sulphur Forks Mission, including this church. Log walls, roof shingles and rafters were cut in sawmill of a settler, Greenville Smith. Present building was erected 800 yards from old site, 1898. RTHL - 1966 #6941
?, Ben Franklin, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #14751
Methodist-Episcopal Church South. #14751
?, Ben Franklin, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #06937
Giles Academy. Early settlers, who came to this area from Giles County, Tenn., founded an academy at this site in 1859. Hired fellow-Tennessean Thomas Hart Benton Hockaday (1835 - 1918) as the first teacher, and named the new school in memory of their southern Tennessee homeland. Hockaday taught at Giles until his enlistment in the Confederate Army in 1862, and after the Civil War for several years before moving to Fannin County in 1870s. He presented a curriculum emphasizing arithmetic, reading the classics, and uses of the English language. (His daughter, Ela Hockaday, 1876 - 1956) founded the well-known Hockaday School for Girls in Dallas in 1913.) School expenses, including teachers' salaries, were paid by parents of the students. A small community center, with a blacksmith shop, general merchandise store, and church, grew up around the large log schoolhouse. After the organization of common school districts in Texas in 1883, the Academy became Giles School, District No. 4. The old log house was replaced with a frame structure in 1886. A more modern building, erected on this site in 1924, was badly damaged by a tornado in 1936. The Giles School never reopened, and its students were distributed between the Ben Franklin and Pecan Gap schools. (1973) #6937
?, Ben Franklin, TX, United States