The Spears Chapel Methodist Church
Burkeville, Newton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Organized 1839 by the Rev. Moses Spear, for whom it was named. First church, a log building, was erected on a 1.7-acre site owned by William McMahon. The leading charter member was the man who had founded first permanent Methodist church in Texas (McMahan Chapel,Sabine County, 1834), the Rev. Henry Stephenson. Charter membership came mostly from his family: Including his wife, Ruth Cox Stephenson; His son John and wife, Luvicy Beard Stephenson; son Felix and wife, Sarah Hyler Stephenson; and son Ira and wife, Harriet Goode Stephenson; also his daughter Mary and husband, William McMahon; his daughter Betty Ann and husband, A. F. Allbright; granddaughter Lunetta and her husband, John C. Hall; and granddaughter Margaret and husband, Thomas Booker. The other charter members were John Byerly, Amos and Tobitha Dubose, and Sarah Rutledge. Original church (About 25 feet North) burned in 1883. It was replaced by a rough "box" structure. Cemetery was started when James H. Kerr died on Nov. 2, 1890. The present church building was erected in 1905. Site, then owned by J. P. McMahon, Senior, and Thomas Booker, was deeded to the chuch in 1906. Except for a few years just prior to 1920, services were held here continuously until 1939.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Spears Chapel was organized in 1839—when Texas was still an independent republic—by the Rev. Moses Spear, its first log meetinghouse rising on land owned by William McMahon. Its charter membership drew heavily on the family of the Rev. Henry Stephenson, who had founded the first permanent Methodist church in Texas at McMahan Chapel in 1834. Fire claimed the original building in 1883, and the present church dates to 1905, with services held here into 1939.
Why it matters
Frontier congregations like this one carried faith, schooling, and community into the raw settlements of early Texas, knitting scattered pioneer families together.
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Related people
- · Rev. Moses Spear
- · Rev. Henry Stephenson
- · William McMahon
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Rev. Henry Stephenson
Burkeville, TX
Born in Virginia in 1772, the Rev. Henry Stephenson was among the very first Methodist preachers to work in Texas, delivering a sermon at Jonesboro in 1817 when the region still lay under Spanish rule. By 1834 he had organized the first permanent Methodist church in Texas and was overseeing all the denomination's work in the province. He died in 1841, a few years into the life of the Republic he had helped to evangelize.
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After the Civil War, a group of freedmen founded the Cedar Grove community here to take advantage of the area's strong cotton market, naming it for the cedars they cut for lumber. At its heart stood the Cedar Grove Community Church, organized with help from the Spears Chapel congregation, which also housed the community's first school. River-transport losses in the 1880s, followed by disease and floods, drove the settlement's decline, leaving the church and cemetery as its enduring markers.
The Survey Community
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Founded on land William Williams surveyed under an 1834 Mexican grant, 'The Survey' drew settlers who built the community's first frame house in 1847 from lumber hauled from Alexandria, Louisiana. Farming and later lumbering sustained the families named Booker, Mattox, Cobb, and others, and at least sixteen residents fought for the Confederacy. Shifting population after the 1940s consolidated the school, closed the post office, and disbanded the church, leaving cemeteries and old buildings tended by a local association.
Farrsville Cemetery
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