Meredith Campground and Tabernacle
Athens, Henderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
North Carolina native Eber Meredith, his wife Caroline (Ross), and their four children moved to this area of Henderson County in the 1850s. Eber Meredith bought 320 acres of land in 1859 and purchased an additional 160 acres four years later. In 1875 a schoolhouse was built near the Meredith home. A Methodist church was organized under a brush arbor near the schoolhouse in 1876, and in 1878 Eber Meredith officially deeded ten acres of land for the church. An open-air tabernacle was built that same year, and the first annual camp meeting was held in the summer. The church and camp meeting became known throughout East Texas, and in some years attracted crowds of as many as 2,000 people. One of the area's early settlers, W. A. Barber, died on August 16, 1876, and was buried at the campground. His was the first grave in the cemetery, which eventually grew to include the burials of many early settlers, including Eber and Caroline Meredith and their descendants, as well as veterans of the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and Vietnam. The present tabernacle was erected in 1890. It features a hipped roof with changes in pitch capped by a cupola. Drop shutters cover openings on each side. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1991
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After North Carolina's Eber Meredith settled his family here in the 1850s, a Methodist congregation gathered under a brush arbor in 1876, and by 1878 Meredith had deeded ten acres for a church and open-air tabernacle. The annual summer camp meetings grew famous across East Texas, drawing crowds of up to 2,000, while the adjoining cemetery gathered generations of settlers and veterans; the present tabernacle, with its distinctive stepped hipped roof and cupola, dates to 1890.
Why it matters
The campground preserves the camp-meeting tradition that shaped rural Southern religious and social life, one of the great communal gatherings of 19th-century America.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When the Meredith family arrived from North Carolina in the 1850s, East Texas was filling up with settlers from the older Southern states. They brought their farming habits, their family networks, and their churches with them. Henderson County was still thinly settled, with scattered farms, few towns, and long rides to anywhere.
For rural people in that setting, religion was also a social life. Few communities could support a full-time pastor. Methodists in particular relied on circuit riders and seasonal gatherings. The camp meeting was the great event of the year, days of preaching, singing, and visiting in the open air, usually held in summer after crops were laid by.
The tradition went back to the revivals of the early 1800s, when huge outdoor meetings on the frontier helped spark the Second Great Awakening. By the 1870s, as the South rebuilt after the Civil War, camp meetings still did what they had always done in rural places: they brought scattered families together, renewed faith, and knit communities together.
People & events
Eber Meredith and his wife, Caroline Ross Meredith, came from North Carolina with their four children and put down deep roots. Eber bought 320 acres in 1859 and 160 more four years later, the kind of steady land-building that anchored a family and, in time, a community.
The community grew around their home. A schoolhouse was built nearby in 1875. The next year, Methodists organized a congregation under a brush arbor, a simple shelter of poles and leafy branches that served many new Southern churches before they could afford a building. In 1878, Eber formally deeded ten acres for the church. That same year an open-air tabernacle went up, and the first annual camp meeting was held that summer.
The meetings became famous across East Texas and sometimes drew as many as 2,000 people, a huge crowd for a rural campground. The land also became a resting place. W. A. Barber, an early settler, died in August 1876 and was the first person buried here. Over the years the cemetery grew to hold many early settlers, including Eber and Caroline and their descendants, as well as veterans of the Civil War, both World Wars, and Vietnam. The tabernacle standing today was built in 1890.
Its place in the American story
Camp meetings are one of the great American religious traditions. They grew out of the frontier revivals of the early nineteenth century, spread with Methodist and Baptist expansion, and shaped the faith of millions in the rural South and Midwest. For many isolated families they were the biggest social event of the year, a mix of worship, reunion, courtship, and news.
Most of the old brush arbors and tabernacles are long gone. Meredith Campground is a place where you can still see the physical setting of that tradition: the open-sided worship shelter, the land deeded for church use, and the cemetery holding the people who gathered here year after year.
The cemetery tells a national story of its own. The veterans buried here served in wars from the 1860s to the 1970s. That's a reminder that small rural communities sent their sons to every major American conflict, then brought them home to the same ground their grandparents settled.
If you visit
Look first at the tabernacle's roof. It's a hipped roof that changes pitch partway down and is topped by a cupola, a practical design that shed rain, moved air, and let heat escape during long summer services. The drop shutters on each side could be opened to the breeze, which tells you how open-air worship worked before air conditioning.
Take some time in the cemetery. The oldest graves take you back to the 1870s, and the veterans' stones follow the community through a century of American history. As always in historic burial grounds, walk gently and treat the graves with respect.
The campground is an easy, peaceful stop on a trip through the East Texas pineywoods and farm country around Athens. Go on a warm afternoon, stand under the tabernacle, and try to imagine it full, with 2,000 people singing hymns among the trees.
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
- · Eber Meredith
- · Caroline Ross Meredith
- · W. A. Barber
Themes & tags
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