Site of St. Mary's Catholic Church and Cemetery
Waller County, Waller County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The first of many Czech immigrants to settle this area purchased from Galveston developer E.H. Fordtran in 1891. Four Czech families founded St. Mary's Catholic Church in 1892. The first recorded burial here, on land donated by Frank Divin, Sr., was that of Antone Blinka in 1893. The Rev. A. Laska established the site as a Catholic cemetery and in 1895 the church built a sanctuary on four adjoining acres. The community faltered after the devastating storm of 1900. The church closed in 1947. St. Martin de Parres Church in Prairie View took over the cemetery's care in 1977.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the early 1890s Czech immigrants began buying land here and founded St. Mary's Catholic Church, building a sanctuary and consecrating a cemetery on donated ground. The community endured the devastating 1900 hurricane but slowly faltered, and the church finally closed in 1947. A neighboring parish took over care of the cemetery, keeping the memory of these settlers alive.
Why it matters
The site marks how Central European Catholic immigrants planted tight-knit farming communities across Texas, leaving churches and cemeteries as their lasting record.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Frank Divin, Sr.
- · A. Laska
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Frey Cemetery
Brookshire vicinity, TX
Born Johannes Frei in Switzerland in 1857, John Frey emigrated to America in 1877 and married German immigrant Mary Baethe in Austin County before the couple moved to Waller County in 1889. When their infant daughter Annie died in 1902, she was buried on the family farm, the first grave in what grew into the family cemetery. John and Mary Frey were laid to rest here too, and their descendants still tend the historic graveyard.
Frey-Benignus House
Brookshire vicinity, TX
Swiss immigrant John Frey and his German-born wife Mary settled in Waller County in late 1889, raising a two-room house, barn, and smokehouse to start their family farm. As their family swelled to fifteen children, they enlarged the home into a fine late-19th-century farmhouse graced with milled wood detail. After the couple's deaths the house passed to their daughter Margarete and her husband Louis Benignus.
Heinrich Konrad Karl Leverkuhn
Waller, TX
German-born Heinrich Leverkuhn came to Texas in 1857 and served as a foragemaster for the Confederate army during the Civil War before opening a store in Hockley. In 1878 he took up farming and ranching in the community now called Macedonia, where he ran a cotton gin, syrup mill, and blacksmith shop. He helped found the Macedonia Methodist Church and McPherson School and, across two marriages, raised fourteen children.
Ahrenbeck-Urban Home
Hempstead, TX
German immigrant William Ahrenbeck built this two-story galleried Greek Revival home around 1872 in Hempstead, where he became a prominent civic leader, builder, postmaster, and mayor. After his death his daughter Ella Justine Ahrenbeck lived here until she sold the property in 1917 to businessman R. R. Urban, whose family enlarged the house and held it until 1965. The home was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1980.