Allison Chapel United Methodist Church

The plaque believes the Rev. Littleton Fowler organized this congregation, and the Handbook of Texas traces him from his birth in Smith County, Tennessee, in 1803. He volunteered for the Texas mission in 1837, crossed the Red River that September and reached San Augustine on October 19. In January 1838, with Thomas J. Rusk, he laid the cornerstone of the San Augustine Methodist church, believed to be the first Protestant church in Texas. He became presiding elder of the San Augustine District in 1840. Fowler died on January 29, 1846, and is buried beneath the pulpit of McMahan's Chapel.

What the plaque says

Allison Chapel United Methodist Church The Rev. Littleton Fowler, an early Methodist missionary in East Texas, is believed to have organized this congregation between 1837 and 1839. Land for the first sanctuary, now the site of Old Williams Cemetery (1 mi. W), was donated by Purviance Williams. The congregation was originally known as Bethesda Church, but the name was later changed to honor Samuel G. Allison, who gave land for the present building site in 1882. Traditionally, Allison Chapel United Methodist Church has been considered the oldest active church in Panola County. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tex Ritter Museum and Texas Country Music Hall of Fame — 11 mi
  Carthage's country music museum, with Tex Ritter's boots, guitars and saddles in a room styled like a movie theater, and exhibits on other Texas stars, Jim Reeves among them.
• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 25 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• East Texas Oil Museum — 26 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.

More markers nearby

• Church Bethel — 4.4 mi
• Ebenezer United Methodist Church — 4.6 mi
• Isaac R. Youngblood — 4.9 mi
• Sugar Hill Cemetery — 5.0 mi