First Presbyterian Church
Calvert, Robertson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built at Sterling before Civil War, on land of Judge Robert Calvert, Texas legislator and descendant of Lord Baltimore (Maryland colonizer). Leaded glass in windows was imported. Other materials and labor were from Calvert's plantation. Calvert's heirs gave building to the church - then Cumberland Presbyterian. It was moved to Calvert 1868, remodeled 1877. Placed at this site in 1913. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This Cumberland Presbyterian sanctuary was raised at Sterling in the years before the Civil War on land owned by Judge Robert Calvert, a Texas legislator descended from Maryland's founding Lord Baltimore. Its leaded-glass windows were imported, but the building materials and labor came from Calvert's plantation. Given to the church by Calvert's heirs, it was moved to Calvert in 1868, remodeled in 1877, and placed at this site in 1913.
Why it matters
The church stands as a tangible record of antebellum Texas, built by plantation labor and carried through Reconstruction to serve a growing town.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Robert Calvert
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Andrew (Rube) Foster
Calvert, TX
Born in Calvert in 1879, Andrew "Rube" Foster rose from pitching for the Waco Yellow Jackets to become the dominant hurler of Black baseball, famed for his fastball and screwball. As a player-manager he built dynasties like the Chicago American Giants, and in 1920 he gathered eight club owners in Kansas City to found the Negro National League—the first lasting African American professional circuit—serving as its president. Honored as the "Father of Black Baseball," he was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1981.
Calvert Colored High School
Calvert, TX
Built in 1929 with help from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, this was one of the largest Rosenwald schools in Texas, replacing the meager 'plantation schools' that had been Black students' only option in Robertson County. The community raised its own share of the cost, and under longtime headmaster W. D. Spigner, enrollment grew as he drew in children from surrounding rural schools. Over the decades it added grades, plumbing, and a gymnasium, was renamed in Spigner's honor, and its building still stands, cared for by the alumni association.
Site of Extinct Town of Hammond
Calvert, TX
Dr. Ben F. Hammond arrived from Alabama in 1853 and built a plantation nearby, and when he granted right-of-way to the Houston & Texas Central Railroad in 1869 a depot, post office, and a few stores sprang up to ship planters' goods. As the railroad's fortunes faded, the town withered and had vanished by 1950. Many area residents today descend from the people whom Hammond and neighboring planters gave land to at Emancipation in 1865.
Colored Graveyard in the Old Town of Hearne
Hearne, TX
Now marked by a single surviving grave, this was a burial ground for African American residents of old Hearne, remembered in folklore as a farm or slave cemetery with its earliest known burial in 1879. When developers bought the land in 1947, descendants were forced to disinter and rebury their relatives—except the children of Hollie Tatnell, a formerly enslaved woman, who refused to move their mother's grave and compelled the builders to work around it.