Site of the First Methodist Episcopal Church
San Augustine, San Augustine County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site of the First METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH Erected in the Republic of Texas. Cornerstone laid, January 7, 1838 with the usages of the Masonic order. The Reverend Littleton Fowler and General Thomas J. Rusk delivered addresses. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On January 7, 1838, with the rites of the Masonic order, the cornerstone was laid here for the first Methodist Episcopal church building erected in the Republic of Texas. The Reverend Littleton Fowler and General Thomas J. Rusk—a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence—delivered the addresses at this early milestone of organized religion in the new republic.
Why it matters
The founding of this church tied faith to the birth of the Texas Republic, with leading figures of independence presiding over one of its first houses of worship.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By early 1838, Texas was a brand-new nation. The revolution had ended less than two years earlier at San Jacinto, and the Republic of Texas was busy inventing itself — a president, a congress, a currency, and all the machinery of a country built almost overnight on the far edge of the Anglo-American world.
San Augustine sat on the old road into Texas from the United States, one of the first substantial towns a newcomer reached after crossing the Sabine. That location made it an early center of commerce, education, and civic life in the young republic, a place where the ambitions of the new nation took visible shape in buildings and institutions.
Into that hopeful, unsettled moment came the builders of churches. Erecting a permanent house of worship in a two-year-old country was an act of confidence — a bet that the republic, and the community around it, were here to stay.
People & events
On January 7, 1838, the cornerstone was laid here for the first Methodist Episcopal church building erected in the Republic of Texas. The ceremony was conducted with the rites of the Masonic order — a common practice for cornerstone-laying in that era, blending civic ritual with religious purpose.
Two notable figures delivered the addresses. The Reverend Littleton Fowler was one of the leading Methodist missionaries sent to bring organized Methodism to the new republic, a central figure in planting the denomination on Texas soil. Beside him stood General Thomas J. Rusk — a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, a commander in the revolution, and one of the most prominent statesmen of the era.
That pairing is the heart of the story: a missionary and a founding statesman, faith and nationhood, standing together over a single cornerstone. The marker itself was erected by the State of Texas in 1936, the centennial of independence, when Texas was busy honoring the places where its republic began.
Its place in the American story
In the young American republics and territories of the nineteenth century, the church and the state grew up side by side, and the same handful of leaders often shaped both. Here that overlap is unusually vivid: the man who helped bring Methodism to Texas and a man who had put his name to Texas independence presided over the same ceremony.
The use of Masonic ritual to lay the cornerstone connects this local moment to a much broader American tradition. Fraternal orders like the Masons were woven through civic life in the early United States and its frontier offshoots, lending ceremony and continuity to the founding of everything from statehouses to churches.
So this site marks more than the first building of one denomination in one republic. It captures the way faith, fraternity, and nation-building were braided together at the very start of Texas — a pattern that echoed across the expanding American frontier wherever new communities set out to establish themselves.
If you visit
You're standing on a site of firsts, in one of the oldest towns in Texas. San Augustine wears its history openly, and this marker rewards a visitor who slows down to read the dates and names and let their weight sink in.
Picture the scene the marker preserves: a January morning in 1838, a brand-new nation barely two years old, a Masonic procession, and a crowd gathered to hear a missionary and a revolutionary general speak over a cornerstone. There is real drama in that image, even if what stands here now is quiet.
San Augustine makes an excellent stop on a heritage road trip through deep East Texas, where several early-republic markers cluster within a short drive. Take your time in town, look for the other historic sites nearby, and treat this cornerstone as one chapter in a place that helped launch a republic.
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
- · Littleton Fowler
- · Thomas J. Rusk
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First United Methodist Church of San Augustine
San Augustine, TX
In October 1837, only months into the life of the Republic of Texas, Methodist missionary Littleton Fowler arrived in San Augustine and within two weeks had land, trustees, and a builder for a church. The cornerstone laid in January 1838 drew a crowd of hundreds and speeches from Fowler and General Thomas J. Rusk, and Fowler proudly called it the first Protestant cornerstone west of the Sabine in the young republic. Methodists have worshiped in the same block of Main Street ever since.
Home of Col. Stephen William Blount
San Augustine, TX
Born in Georgia in 1808, Stephen William Blount came to Texas in 1835 and signed the Texas Declaration of Independence before joining the Army of Texas in the fight for independence. He went on to serve his adopted home as the first county clerk of San Augustine County and the first district clerk of the First Judicial District, living out his life in the town until 1890.
Home of Matthew Cartwright
San Augustine, TX
Built in 1839, in the days of the Republic of Texas, this house was purchased in 1847 by Matthew Cartwright, a member of a prominent East Texas family. Remarkably, it remained in the hands of his descendants for generations, and the State of Texas honored it with a marker during the 1936 centennial of Texas independence. Homes like it anchored San Augustine as one of the oldest Anglo-American settlements in the region.
An Early Presbyterian Church in Texas
San Augustine, TX
Founded as the Bethel Presbyterian Church at the Goodlaw School House by the Reverend Hugh Wilson on June 2, 1838, this early Republic-era congregation drew together settler families of San Augustine. Its charter roll named more than two dozen members, including the enslaved couple Jack and Hanna Sharp, recorded among the founders.