Allen Chapel A. M. E. Church

The plaque says Charles B. Foster replaced Hammitt as pastor in 1868. The church's 2011 narrative by Callie Turner and John P. Blair adds who he was. Foster ran a freedmen's school and held services in a federal schoolhouse, the congregation's second meeting place. In 1870 he was appointed alderman, one of two Black men in that role. A May 1869 quarterly conference reported 35 new members, a Sunday school of sixty pupils and a $37.80 debt. Foster left Bryan around 1872 amid legal problems the authors tie to attacks on Black leaders.

What the plaque says

Allen Chapel A. M. E. Church Methodism among African American Texans predates the Civil War with the First Church being established in 1848. The earliest known African American minister in Brazos County was reverend Emmanuel Hammitt who served under Reverend W.S. South. After emancipation African Americans were free to establish their own churches. Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.) is named after Reverend Richard Allen, who founded roots of the A.M.E.. in 1787. the first meeting of the Allen chapel congregation was before 1870. Church services were held in brush arbors and reverend Hammitt became the first minister in 1866. Reverend Charles B. Foster replaced Hammitt as pastor of the Allen Chapel congregation in 1868. The congregation purchased land in July of 1870 to build the first chapel located on North Houston and East 22nd Street. Allen Chapel also served as a school for African American children in 1914 when their school was destroyed by fire. The second church was built in 1920 and the current church in 1961. The congregation has supported many organizations including the N.A.A.C.P., Bryan Charity Fund, Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation, Bethune Women's Club and the Gideons. The church continues to fellowship with local churches with proceeds going to those in need. Allen Chapel A.M.E. church is among the oldest continuing churches in Brazos County. If the formation of a church is measured by the presence of a minister and congregation then Allen Chapel would be one of the earliest organized African Methodist Episcopal Congregations in Texas. (2012)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum — 5.7 mi
  The library of the forty-first president on the Texas A&M campus, opened in 1997, where George and Barbara Bush and their daughter Robin are buried in a family plot on the grounds.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 25 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Navasota — 26 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.
• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 27 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.

More markers nearby

• Black Education in Bryan — steps away
• Site of Odd Fellows University and Orphans Home — 0.2 mi
• St. Joseph School — 0.2 mi
• St. Joseph Catholic Church — 0.3 mi