First Methodist Church

Every board of the first Methodist church was cut by hand. A 1915 county history says the congregation bought an acre from Jesse Farral on July 1, 1848, for $100, then felled cedar logs and hauled and whip-sawed them, planing the weatherboarding and ceiling by hand. The church was thirty feet by fifty and was finished in 1851 or 1852. Its pulpit was so high and boxed that a seated preacher was almost out of sight, and a spire and a bell topped the roof. Until then the Methodists met in the Hickory Grove schoolhouse.

What the plaque says

First Methodist Church Brenham's first church; was established year Brenham founded, 1844. Early member R. B. Wells wrote and published "Christian Advocate", church magazine of Texas Methodists here in 1846. By 1868 church had reached such stature that the Texas Methodist Conference met here. Group built Giddings Memorial Church in 1879 to honor J. D. Giddings, early settler who organized church. In 1939 merged with Fourth Street Methodist Church, German Methodist group which began in 1872 as New Mission Field. German group established Blinn College in 1883. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 11 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.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 18 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.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 18 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.
• Round Top and Festival Hill — 19 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.

More markers nearby

• Brenham Public Library — steps away
• First Baptist Church — steps away
• Washington County, C.S.A. — 0.2 mi
• The Brenham Maifest — 0.2 mi