First United Methodist Church of Bonham

The school Lelia Roberts ran was in Saltillo, Coahuila. A Vanguardia history says the Colegio Ingles opened in 1886 and that Methodist women's foreign missions took it over a year later. Roberts, who had worked at the Methodist seminary in Laredo, bought the old two-story adobe house herself, and a Methodist named Grimes helped pay for its renovation. The state governor recommended the school, and a new building in 1922 changed the name to Colegio Roberts in her honor. The same article says she died in Bonham on June 16, 1950.

What the plaque says

First United Methodist Church of Bonham Founded in 1844 in the Republic of Texas by a circuit rider, the Rev. James H. Graham (1815-1884), this church first met in a log cabin, which it shared with Baptist and Presbyterian congregations. Charter members included the families of Bailey English (1797-1867), founder of the town of bonham, and his brother-in-law, James P. Simpson. The log cabin was replaced in 1872 by a frame church, which the Methodists shared on alternate Sundays with Cumberland Presbyterians until 1881. A brick church building was erected in 1887 and rebuilt one year after it was destroyed by a fire in 1898. The Women's Missionary Society, organized in 1887, enabled Lelia Roberts (1861-1950), a lifelong members of this congregation, to begin a mission school in Mexico. Miss Roberts, along with her sister, Martha, operated the school for 44 years until it was taken over by the Mexican government in 1930. A memorial fund, established by the church in 1950, continues the missionary efforts begun by Miss Roberts. An education building was constructed in 1952-53 and the present sanctuary in 1960-61. With a current (1975) membership of 841, this is one of the largest congregations in Fannin County.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 2.0 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 23 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Eisenhower State Park — 29 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.

More markers nearby

• Trinity Episcopal Church — steps away
• First Christian Church of Bonham — steps away
• On Route of Early Texas Streetcars — steps away
• Confederate Commissary — steps away