Barnett Chapel Methodist Church
Kerrville, Kerr County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This is the oldest African American church in Kerr county. In 1896, Jim and Josephine Barnett were instrumental in organizing the first religious services for African Americans in Kerrville. The congregation was named Barnett Chapel in their honor. On March 8, 1898, John T. Page sold, to trustees Josephine Barnett, Levi Butler, Z. T. Wilson and James Askey, property which remains the congregation’s home today. Circuit-riding ministers came from Bandera, Uvalde and Fredericksburg before the Rev. W.M. Mosby became the first full-time minister in 1902. Through worship, evangelism, outreach, emergency relief, Juneteenth and heritage celebrations, youth programs, music, and mission work, the congregation has made a significant impact on the community. (2017)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Barnett Chapel is the oldest African American church in Kerr County, tracing to 1896 when Jim and Josephine Barnett helped organize Kerrville's first religious services for Black residents. Named in the couple's honor, the congregation secured its lasting home in 1898 and was served by circuit-riding ministers from surrounding towns until the Rev. W.M. Mosby became its first full-time pastor in 1902. Through worship, outreach, youth work, and Juneteenth celebrations it has remained a pillar of the community.
Why it matters
As the county's first Black congregation, it shows how churches became the organizing heart of African American life in the segregation-era South.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Barnett Chapel took root in 1896, a generation after emancipation, in a Texas still defined by segregation. For African American communities across the South and Southwest, this was an era of building — of creating institutions of their own when so many public spaces were closed to them. The church was almost always the first and most important of those institutions.
Kerrville in the 1890s was a small Hill Country town, and its Black residents were a modest community with few places to gather freely. Establishing regular worship meant carving out a space that was truly theirs: a place to pray, to organize, to educate, and to hold one another up. That work fell to determined local families rather than distant authorities.
The congregation grew during the Reconstruction-era aftermath and on into the modern age, spanning decades of profound change. Through all of it, the church remained a fixed point — the oldest African American congregation in Kerr County, and a measure of how a community can plant something that endures.
People & events
The story begins with Jim and Josephine Barnett, who in 1896 were instrumental in organizing the first religious services for African Americans in Kerrville. In honor of their leadership, the gathering congregation took the name Barnett Chapel — a fitting tribute to the couple at its heart.
On March 8, 1898, the church secured its permanent footing when John T. Page sold property to trustees Josephine Barnett, Levi Butler, Z. T. Wilson, and James Askey. That parcel remains the congregation's home to this day, a rare and powerful continuity of place stretching back more than a century.
In the early years, worship depended on circuit-riding ministers who traveled in from Bandera, Uvalde, and Fredericksburg to serve the young congregation. That changed in 1902, when the Rev. W.M. Mosby became its first full-time minister. From there the church's life widened steadily — worship and evangelism, outreach and emergency relief, youth programs, music, mission work, and Juneteenth and heritage celebrations — weaving itself deep into the fabric of the community.
Its place in the American story
In the segregation-era South, the Black church was far more than a house of worship. It was the one institution African Americans fully owned and governed, and so it became the organizing heart of community life — school and meeting hall, relief society and cultural center, all at once. Barnett Chapel's long list of ministries reflects exactly that many-sided role.
The congregation's embrace of Juneteenth is especially resonant. Born in Texas, Juneteenth marks the day freedom finally reached the enslaved people of the state, and Black churches were the keepers of that memory long before the day gained national recognition. A church that has celebrated it across generations has helped carry an essential American story forward.
That trustees held the land continuously from 1898 onward is its own quiet triumph. Across the country, Black congregations often struggled to acquire and keep property; one that has anchored the same ground for well over a century stands as living testimony to the resilience and self-determination at the center of African American history.
If you visit
Come to this site aware that you are standing on ground a community has held since 1898 — the same property, still serving the same congregation. That kind of continuity is rare, and it gives the place a weight that no single building detail could match.
Let the marker slow you down long enough to consider the names on it: the Barnetts who gathered the first worshippers, the trustees who secured the land, and the circuit-riding ministers who rode in from Bandera, Uvalde, and Fredericksburg before a full-time pastor arrived. Each name represents real people who built something meant to outlast them.
As a stop on a Hill Country trip, Barnett Chapel offers a different and vital thread of the region's history — the story of its African American community and the institution at its center. Visit with respect for an active congregation, and let it deepen the fuller picture of Kerrville beyond its more familiar landmarks.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Jim Barnett
- · Josephine Barnett
- · W.M. Mosby
Themes & tags
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