Belton Woman's Commonwealth

The Handbook of Texas describes how the sisters lived. Their weekly Bible group became a commune, and in 1879, financially independent from selling eggs and dairy products, taking in laundry, hauling wood and nursing, they began a common treasury. Job rotation let members learn dentistry, blacksmithing and shoemaking. Some husbands reacted angrily or violently, and McWhirter's home filled with women seeking refuge. Belton blamed the group for separations and divorces. When two Scottish brothers sought it out, they were kidnapped, whipped, warned to leave town and briefly committed to the state asylum.

What the plaque says

Belton Woman's Commonwealth In 1867, Martha White McWhirter experienced a religious vision during which she felt she had been sanctified by God. She began to share her experience with other Belton women, and soon formed a small community of women who, desiring to leave their unfulfilling lives as wives and mothers, joined McWhirter in her beliefs. The four major tenents of the group included a commitment to celibacy, non-denominationalism, dream interpretation and communal living. The group called themselves the true church colony, and were later incorporated as the Belton Woman's Commonwealth. Because group members severed ties with their non-sanctified husbands and churches, they were forced to produce income for themselves and their dependent children. Among other jobs, the women sold bread, took in laundry and practiced dentistry from their headquarters at the McWhirter home. In 1886, the women opened the Central Hotel, which was located on the West side of North Main Street, between First and Seocnd Avenues. Although community members tried to keep travelers away from the hotel at first, the Central Hotel soon earned a strong reputation in the community and throughout the state for its fine food and accommodations, and the hotel served as an important source of income for the women. In 1894, Martha McWhirter was elected as the first female to serve on the Belton Board of Trade. As instrcuted in a dream, the group sold their Central Texas properties and relocated to the Washignton, D.C. area in 1900. The group's membership began to decline, and there were only nine remaining members by 1908. The last commonwealth member, Martha Scheble, died at the age of 101 in 1983. (2009)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 7.4 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Mother Neff State Park — 19 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• African American Education in Belton — 0.2 mi
• William Whitaker Reed — 0.2 mi
• Bell County Courthouses — 0.3 mi
• Peter Hansbrough Bell — 0.3 mi