Waugh Campground
Caldwell, Burleson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Given to Methodist church as a camp-meeting site, by the Isaac S. Addison family. Mrs. Addison named camp in honor of Bishop Beverly Waugh, who presided at first Methodist Conference in Texas, and who, like the Addisons, was from Baltimore, Md. Site was used for quarterly conferences of the church and for revivals. Converted here was The Rev. B. H. Carroll (1843-1914), great Baptist leader. Campground was open also for secular gatherings. A famous occasion was the July 16, 1857, debate between U.S. Senator Sam Houston and Judge A. S. Broaddus, a Burleson County leader.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Donated by the Baltimore-born Addison family, this Methodist camp-meeting ground honored Bishop Beverly Waugh, who presided over the first Methodist Conference in Texas. In the frontier decades it drew crowds for revivals and quarterly conferences—here the young B. H. Carroll, later a towering Baptist leader, was converted. Its open grounds also hosted secular events, most famously an 1857 debate between U.S. Senator Sam Houston and Judge A. S. Broaddus.
Why it matters
Camp meetings like this were the social and spiritual hubs of frontier Texas, where religion, politics, and community life converged on a single shaded clearing.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the mid-1800s, much of Texas was still thinly settled, and families lived on farms and ranches spread across miles of open country. Churches were few and preachers often rode long circuits. The camp meeting was one of the most important events of the year. For several days, families would travel in, camp on the grounds and gather for preaching, singing and prayer.
Methodists were especially good at this kind of frontier religion. Their circuit riders and camp meetings reached people that settled churches could not. Organized Methodism in Texas grew quickly in the years of the Republic and early statehood.
Camp meetings were more than religious events. They were also social occasions where scattered neighbors saw one another, young people courted, news was traded and community ties grew stronger. A good shaded campground was a valuable public asset, and that is what the Addison family gave to the church here.
People & events
The land came from the Isaac S. Addison family, who gave it to the Methodist church as a camp-meeting site. Mrs. Addison chose the name, honoring Bishop Beverly Waugh. Waugh had presided over the first Methodist Conference in Texas, and like the Addisons he came from Baltimore, Maryland. The name was a link between their old home and their new one.
The grounds hosted quarterly church conferences and revivals, and one conversion here had lasting results. B. H. Carroll (1843–1914) was converted on these grounds and went on to become one of the great Baptist leaders in Texas. It is a striking detail that a Methodist campground helped produce a towering figure in the Baptist church, and it shows how freely frontier Texans moved between denominations at revival time.
The campground was also open for public, non-religious events. The most famous came on July 16, 1857, when U.S. Senator Sam Houston debated Judge A. S. Broaddus, a Burleson County leader. That summer Houston was campaigning for governor of Texas. The hero of San Jacinto, speaking in a clearing to a crowd of farm families, would have been an event people talked about for years.
Its place in the American story
Camp meetings were among the most important institutions of frontier America. They helped drive the waves of religious revival that shaped American Protestantism in the nineteenth century, and they spread Methodism and other evangelical churches across the South and West.
The campground also shows how closely religion and public life were linked in that period. The same open ground held revivals and political debates. In a country without radio or television, a public debate was how ordinary voters heard candidates in person and judged them for themselves.
The 1857 debate came at a tense time. The nation was deeply divided over slavery and its expansion, and those arguments were growing sharper in Texas as well. Houston was a firm supporter of the Union, and his campaigns in these years took place as the conflict that would become the Civil War was approaching. Waugh Campground was one of the places where Texans met to hear those arguments.
If you visit
Come here expecting a quiet place rather than a building. The appeal of a historic campground is in picturing what it once held: wagons drawn up under the trees, families camped for days, hymns carrying across the grounds, and a preacher's voice rising over the crowd.
Then picture that summer day in 1857, with neighbors arriving from across Burleson County to hear Sam Houston himself take on a respected local judge. Few rural sites can say that one of the founding figures of Texas once spoke there.
The campground sits in the farm country around Caldwell, between the Brazos River valley and the College Station area. It makes a thoughtful stop on a back-roads drive through Central Texas. Be respectful of the grounds, and give yourself a moment to enjoy the quiet.
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
- · Bishop Beverly Waugh
- · Isaac S. Addison
- · Rev. B. H. Carroll
- · Sam Houston
- · A. S. Broaddus
Related events
- · 1857 Houston–Broaddus debate
Themes & tags
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