From the moment that the first prayers are said in a newly-commissioned church, the words float up to fill the church. Like a helium-filled balloon at a birthday party, the prayers stack up against the overhead. Year after year those prayers crowd together, eventually they fill the church, spilling out the doors and windows.

Local churches are marking notable anniversaries this year. The First Baptist Church of Quitman is celebrating 175 years of service, while both the First Baptist Church of Mineola and the First Methodist Church of Mineola are in their 150th years. The Tinney Chapel Methodist Church is celebrating their 125 years of service. That is a lot of prayers. 

Seen figuratively, the prayers from these churches have been creating clouds of petitions and praise above Wood County. Alternatively, they could be said to have created continuous streams of prayers headed for heaven. 

To help note the anniversary at Tinney Chapel, the congregation held a Tinney family reunion two Saturdays past. Nonagenarian Joe Dan Boyd took time from visiting with extended family to sit down and chat about the chapel.

“There was a woodpecker hole in the front exterior wall of the old church,” he began, “and as a kid we use to play the hickory nut game – tossing hickory nuts up at that hole in the wall.” The hole on the front of the old church, about 15 feet up the wall to the left of the front doors, was evident in an old photo.  

Boyd grew up in the large family home on the corner of Farm-to-Market 312 and County Road 4620 and passed the chapel as he walked to and from the Vernon Common Schoolhouse. Vernon School had been relocated from its original site to the vicinity of the chapel in 1911 by Boyd’s great-great grandfather Ambrose Tinney.

It was Ambrose Tinney who came to Texas from northeast Alabama in 1886 and settled just south/southeast of Winnsboro. 

“At some point,” Boyd related, “he determined that they needed to have a chapel, so they built it.”

That first chapel was more than a church. It also functioned as a community center with a small stage and hosted singings and poetry recitals.

“I was a young boy, and had to recite a poem one weekend,” Boyd admitted, “It was a little four-line poem and I forgot the last line,” he laughed, then added, “but you know I could feel love coming out of that old church.”

Boyd does recall two features of the original chapel: the large barrel-shaped wood-burning stove which sat right in the middle and the heavy, royal-purple curtain.

“That fancy curtain was over the pulpit, but was only used when we staged the other events in the chapel,” he noted.  

Ambrose Tinney was his own man and held strong beliefs. Some were shaped by the Civil War. Boyd explained, “Ambrose did not believe in succession from the Union.” 

That stance eventually led to the church being associated with the northern jurisdiction of the Methodist Church.

The chapel was known as Blackwell Chapel for a while, according to Boyd, due to a Reverend Blackwell being the first circuit-riding preacher to service the chapel. 

Circuit-riders were not always a big success at Tinney Chapel. The area had become its own little community – some people referred to it as Tinneytown. Families farmed corn, peanuts, sorghum, cucumbers, squash and other crops on small diversified holdings. There had to be a good match between the visiting ministers, who came from Sulphur Springs, and the community. 

For a stretch of time, the community ceased Sunday services and conducted only children’s Sunday School.  

Ambrose passed on in 1924, and in 1928 Tinney Chapel became Mission Church of the First Methodist Church of Winnsboro, under the direction of Rev. K.R. Isbell. 

According to Boyd, Isbell had been successful in building relationships with members of the Chapel. The reverend was known for visiting the area of Tinney Chapel and finding the men in the fields and even lending a hand while speaking with them. The Sunday sermon was conducted at 9 a.m. so that the reverend could be back for his 11 a.m. service in Winnsboro.

Boyd officially joined the church on the eve of his 1953 departure for Texas A&M University.  One of his favorite memories of that time in the life of the church was a hot August evening, “The Big Baptism Night” as it came to be called. That evening around 40 people were baptized under a large brush arbor adjacent to the church.

While Boyd was in College Station, a windstorm caused irreparable damage to the old chapel. It could not be salvaged. When Boyd returned from his studies at TAMU, there was a new church building. It yet stands today and is known for the exquisitely beautiful stained-glass windows.

Boyd embarked on a career in agricultural journalism, writing for 40 years with the Farm Journal. He became an integral part of life at Tinney Chapel serving as communications director, as well as teaching Sunday School. He is responsible for coining the phrase “Tinney Chapel – the quintessential country church.”

Tinney Chapel remained a Mission Church until becoming independent in 1987.

While the Vernon School was shuttered with the creation of the Winnsboro Independent School District consolidation of 1946, Tinney Chapel Methodist Church continues its fellowship, praise and service. Under the current direction of Pastor Michael Moore, Tinney Chapel is renowned for the services which its relatively small congregation undertake. 

As Boyd reflected, “People love this church.”