HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

Beulah Congregational Methodist Church

Lufkin vicinity, Angelina County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Allen Squyres, son of Beaulah pioneers, joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1845. He was licensed to preach in 1868 after his return from the Civil War. In 1883, area Methodists left the church they shared with local Baptists to form a Methodist Episcopal Church. The Rev. Mr. Squyres left the Methodist Episcopal Church and became a Congregational Methodist in 1889; in 1892, the Methodist Episcopal congregation moved to Beulah and joined the Congregational Methodist Conference with the Rev. Allen Squyres as their first pastor. With 34 members in 1998, the Beulah Congregational MEthodist Church continued to provide worship services and community outreach to Beaulah and Angelina County. (1998)

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Allen Squyres, son of Beulah pioneers, joined the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1845 and was licensed to preach in 1868 after returning from the Civil War. In 1883 area Methodists split from the Baptists they had shared a church with to form their own congregation, and by 1892 that fellowship moved to Beulah and joined the Congregational Methodist Conference with Squyres as its first pastor. More than a century later the small church still offered worship and outreach to the Beulah community.

Why it matters

The congregation's founding traces the denominational branching and settlement patterns that shaped religious life in rural post-Civil War East Texas.

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Related people

  • · Allen Squyres

Themes & tags

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