First Known Religious Services in Mason County

Hedwigs Hill, another of the county's oldest German settlements, was settled by the same Fredericksburg overflow, including Christopher Voges and Louis Martin. Martin's mother and daughter were both named Hedwig, and the place is believed to be named for them. One of the county's first post offices opened there in June 1858 with Louis Martin as postmaster. A Methodist Episcopal church was established in 1870, and at one time three churches served the area. The post office closed in 1907, and in 1971 the last house on the old townsite was moved to the Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock.

What the plaque says

First Known Religious Services in Mason County Early settlers in this area were German immigrants who arrived about 1850. Their first worship services were held about twenty feet north of this site, under a large oak tree on the property of August H. Leifeste, Sr. (1812-1884). During the early 1850s, Conrad Pluenneke (1819-1897), a local preacher, held Methodist services. In 1852, the Rev. Charles A. Grote (1819-1887), a Methodist, and the Rev. Philip F. Zizelmann (1824-1902), a Lutheran, traveled from Fredericksburg to hold services once a month. Although the oak tree no longer stands, the site remains important to the religious heritage of Mason County. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Mason — 16 mi
  A reconstructed officers' quarters on Post Oak Hill above Mason, standing where the army's stone fort was taken apart by the town that grew up below it.
• Enchanted Rock State Natural Area — 16 mi
  A dome of pink granite north of Fredericksburg that rises some 385 feet above Sandy Creek, creaks as it cools at night, and has drawn people for thousands of years.
• Llano County Courthouse Square — 17 mi
  The 1893 Romanesque courthouse on Llano's square, built after a fire at the height of a boom that was meant to make the granite town an iron city.
• Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve — 24 mi
  A limestone cave on the James River where about four million Mexican free-tailed bats raise their young each summer, kept open to visitors by a family's gift.

More markers nearby

• German Settlements — 0.4 mi
• Castell School — 0.7 mi
• Trinity United Methodist Church Cemetery — 0.7 mi
• St. John Lutheran Church Cemetery — 1.4 mi