First Methodist Church
Marshall, Harrison County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Begun by Littleton Fowler, 1839. Job M. Baker, first pastor. Organized 1845. Built 1861 on site given by Wm. M. and Mary M. Johnston. Bricks hand-molded, beams hand-hewn. Gallery in north end for slave members. Munitions stored in basement during Civil War. Bell, given to Confederacy, replaced 1865 by one stolen from Federal Army. During World War I, this sold for metal. While pastor here, 1866, Dr. E. M. Marvin was elected bishop. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Marshall grew into one of East Texas's leading towns before the Civil War, and its First Methodist congregation reflects that arc. Begun by circuit-rider Littleton Fowler in 1839 and organized in 1845, the church raised its brick sanctuary in 1861 with hand-molded bricks and a north gallery for enslaved worshippers. During the war its basement stored munitions and its bell was given to the Confederacy, later replaced by one taken from Federal forces; a wartime pastor, E. M. Marvin, went on to become a Methodist bishop.
Why it matters
The building is a physical ledger of the divided nation, its slave gallery, donated bell, and munitions cellar showing how a single house of worship was swept up in slavery and the Civil War.
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Related people
- · Littleton Fowler
- · E. M. Marvin
Related events
- · American Civil War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Marshall
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This ground first served a Confederate gunpowder factory, and its burials began with enslaved people laid to rest on the mill's acreage. After the factory fell with the Confederacy in 1865, the land passed into private hands, and by 1880 a local mortician began recording graves here. The cemetery became the resting place of many of Marshall's Black leaders — educators, ministers, businesspeople, war veterans, and legislator David Abner among them.
Site of the Capitol Hotel
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Business leader George B. Adkins built a fine three-story brick hotel on this Marshall site in 1857, and "Adkins House" quickly became a stage depot serving the southern branch of the Butterfield Overland Mail. During the Civil War, the exiled Confederate governor of Missouri met here with the Confederate governors of Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, making the hotel a quiet crossroads of Confederate wartime politics. Later renamed "The Capitol," it hosted celebrities for decades before its first floor turned to shops and the building was finally razed in 1971–72.
Robert W. Loughery, Civil War Editor
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Robert W. Loughery, born in 1820, became one of East Texas' most influential newspapermen through his Harrison County papers, above all Marshall's Texas Republican. A fierce partisan, he used his columns to champion slavery, secession, and the Confederacy while lambasting his critics. After the war he wrote across the state, served briefly as U.S. Consul in Acapulco, and died in Marshall in 1894.