St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Orange, Orange County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This church was established in 1863 under the leadership of the Rev. Joseph Wood Dunn, an area missionary. The earliest services were conducted in the home of Jerome Swinford. His mother-in-law Mary W. Trumble later donated land at the corner of Fourth and Main for construction of the first church building. The Women's Guild provided funds for the growing mission by selling cakes and serving meals. In 1920, during the pastorate of the Rev. Edgar N. LeBlanc, St. Paul's became a parish. Since the 1860s, the church has been active in the development of Orange.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Established in 1863 under the missionary Rev. Joseph Wood Dunn, this Episcopal congregation held its first services in Jerome Swinford's home, and his mother-in-law Mary W. Trumble later donated the land for its first church. The women of the parish sustained the growing mission by selling cakes and serving meals, and in 1920 St. Paul's was elevated to a full parish. It has helped shape the town of Orange ever since.
Why it matters
Founded amid the Civil War and carried forward by the labor of its women, the church shows how quiet, everyday effort built lasting community institutions.
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Related people
- · Rev. Joseph Wood Dunn
- · Jerome Swinford
- · Mary W. Trumble
- · Rev. Edgar N. LeBlanc
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Miss Laura Chandler's Private School
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James M. Chandler, a Confederate veteran, brought his family to Texas after the Civil War and around 1890 built a home and outbuildings, including a stable, on this property. In 1896 his daughter Laura began teaching classes in the room above the stable. When she married Knox Herbert in 1904, the stable-schoolhouse was remodeled into a home for the couple, and the surviving structure recalls Victorian-era life in Orange.
Lutcher Memorial Church Building
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Orange's First Presbyterian Church, founded in 1878, worshiped in a modest frame building until 1912, when it moved into this richly appointed sanctuary given by Frances Ann Lutcher, whose husband H. J. Lutcher had built a fortune in the Lutcher & Moore Lumber Company. She asked that the building's cost never be made public and endowed its upkeep, sparing no expense: art-glass windows from Lamb Studios of New York, three prize windows from the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, Italian marble, Llano granite, gold-leaf decoration, and mahogany woodwork. The result is one of Southeast Texas' most lavish houses of worship.
The Woman's Club of Orange
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With few cultural outlets for women in 1890s Orange, a small group met in 1893 to form the Ladies' Shakespeare Club for the study of literature and history. Renamed and joined to the General Federation of Women's Clubs in 1903, the club organized Orange's first library—starting from a courthouse magazine exchange—and in 1923 built a clubhouse that housed the town's first public library. As the Woman's Club, the group carried its founders' civic traditions into the 21st century.
Emma George Latchem
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