Cedar Creek Community

Cedar Creek lived off its cedars. The Handbook says timber from the stands around it kept the settlement prosperous, and a post office opened on March 23, 1837, with James Hall as postmaster. A large Methodist camp meeting gathered there on October 19, 1843, and the eighth Texas Conference of the Methodist Church met from December 29, 1847, to January 3, 1848. Chappell Hill was founded nearby the next year, the academy moved there, and Cedar Creek dwindled away. The marker stands on a public road; the camp ground itself is private land.

What the plaque says

Cedar Creek Community CEDAR CREEK COMMUNITY Located halfway between San Felipe de Austin and the town of Washington, Cedar Creek existed from the mid-1830s to the early 1850s. Cedar creek was inhabited by Methodists and became the center for the Texas Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1849, Chappell Hill was founded by the Cedar Creek Community. Chappell Hill M.E. Church became the hub of Methodism in central Texas. The community folded into the town of Chappell hill two miles south of the Cedar Creek Camp meeting site. The land reverted to farmland by the end of the civil war. Today, the site is on private property north of the Chappell Hill Masonic Cemetery. Rocks laid around the community spring are still visible. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 13 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.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 13 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 13 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Navasota — 19 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.

More markers nearby

• William Jones E. Heard — steps away
• Site of Chappell Hill College — 1.0 mi
• Site of Soule University for Boys — 1.3 mi
• Chappell Hill — 1.3 mi