Calvary Episcopal Church

Texas Episcopalians were organized as a diocese on January 1, 1849, at a meeting in Christ Church, Matagorda. Charles Gillette's St. Paul's School and College trained candidates for the ministry, and many of them went out as missionaries across Texas. Richmond's first church building went up in 1859, the year Alexander Gregg, rector at Cheraw, South Carolina, was consecrated on October 13 as the first bishop of Texas. Under Gregg the diocese grew so quickly that in 1874 it was cut back to the fifty-seven counties of Southeast Texas, with the north and west made missionary districts.

What the plaque says

Calvary Episcopal Church This congregation grew out of Episcopal missionary efforts that began soon after Texas gained its independence from Mexico. In 1859, through the effort of Judge W. E. Kendall, the first church building was erected, and the church became a parish. Early clergy included the Rev. Hannibal Pratt and the Rev. William T. Dalzell. Members have included statesman Mirabeau B. Lamar and many descendants of early Texas colonists. The congregation's rich heritage provides a significant link to the early history of the Episcopal church in Texas. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazos Bend State Park — 17 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• The Menil Collection — 25 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 25 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.
• Rothko Chapel — 25 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.

More markers nearby

• Erastus ("Deaf") Smith — 0.3 mi
• Constantine W. Buckley — 0.5 mi
• Early Courthouse Square — 0.5 mi
• Wyly Martin — 0.5 mi