Webberville Ebenezer Baptist Church
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This church traces its origin to the plight of Anglo American John F. Webber, who along with his African American wife and children, settled in this sparsely populated area of Texas in 1839 to escape the racism they had experienced in towns and cities. A community known as Webber Prairie consisting of plantation owners and their slaves developed here. Racial prejudice caused Webber to sell his land to Colonel John Banks in 1851 and move his family to Mexico. In 1868 Matthew Duty donated one acre of land here for the purpose of building a church for the area's recently emancipated African Americans. That year the Webberville Ebenezer Baptist Church was organized as a mission of the St. John Regular Missionary Baptist Association. Charter members included Thomas Reads, Suns Johnson, Lowens Berry, and Mary Green. The Rev. Wesley Barrow served as Ebenezer's first pastor. In 1956 several members of the congregation left Ebenezer Baptist to form a church in Austin which became known as the New Light Ebenezer Baptist Church. Ebenezer Baptist remains active despite the relocation of many of Webberville's families to nearby urban centers. Former members continue to gather here on special occasions and holidays. (1993)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This church grew out of the story of John F. Webber, an Anglo settler who, with his African American wife and children, moved to this prairie in 1839 to escape the racism they faced in town—though prejudice eventually drove the family to Mexico by 1851. After emancipation, Matthew Duty donated an acre here in 1868, and the Webberville Ebenezer Baptist Church was organized that year for the area's freedpeople, with the Rev. Wesley Barrow as its first pastor. Still gathering its scattered families for holidays and special occasions, the congregation carries a nearly century-and-a-half legacy.
Why it matters
It preserves the deep roots of a freedpeople's congregation and a rare interracial frontier family in a Texas shaped by slavery and its aftermath.
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Related people
- · John F. Webber
- · Matthew Duty
- · Wesley Barrow
Themes & tags
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