The Rev. Jacob Scherer
Columbus, Colorado County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(February 7, 1785 - March 2, 1860) Born in North Carolina. Moved to Texas in 1851. As pastor here, is said to have founded the first English-speaking Lutheran Church in Texas; a founder (1857) of Colorado College, first public school in Columbus and one of first in Texas; he and 3 sons made brick and built the college. (1973)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in North Carolina in 1785, the Rev. Jacob Scherer moved to Texas in 1851 and, as pastor at Columbus, is credited with founding the first English-speaking Lutheran church in the state. In 1857 he helped establish Colorado College, the first public school in Columbus and among the earliest in Texas, and he and three of his sons made the very brick and raised the building themselves. He died in 1860 near the end of a life devoted to church and schooling on the frontier.
Why it matters
Scherer's work planting a church and an early public school shows how frontier clergy laid the religious and educational foundations of nineteenth-century Texas towns.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Jacob Scherer
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Homesite of Fannie Baker Darden
Columbus, TX
Fannie Baker Darden, born in 1829, was the daughter of Texas Revolution general Mosely Baker and became known as the 'Poet Laureate of Columbus.' She married a local attorney, raised two sons, taught art at Colorado College, and wrote for newspapers from Columbus and Galveston to Houston and New Orleans.
Site of Columbus Female Seminary
Columbus, TX
Founded on February 3, 1851, by the local Masonic lodge, the Columbus Female Seminary was the first organized school in Columbus, occupying the first floor of the lodge hall. For many years it taught literary subjects, music, and art to the town's young women. The building was destroyed by the great hurricane of September 1909.
Home of William Christian Papenberg
Columbus, TX
William Christian Papenberg came to Texas from Illinois in 1899 as a schoolteacher and settled in Columbus in 1904, soon trading the classroom for public office. He served as district clerk of Colorado County for a remarkable thirty-eight years. The house he and his wife Emma built in 1914 has stayed in the family and was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1973.
Caledonia Lodge No. 68, A. F. & A. M.
Columbus, TX
Chartered in early 1851, Caledonia Lodge did what many frontier Masonic lodges did on the Texas frontier — it became the town's first schoolhouse builder. Within weeks the Masons founded the Columbus Female Seminary, the first school in Columbus, raising a two-story building with classrooms below and their lodge hall above. In 1857 they went further and founded Colorado College, the town's first public school.