Historical Marker

First United Methodist Church of San Augustine

San Augustine, San Augustine County · Texas
Erected 1978

Littleton Fowler set out for Texas on August 22, 1837, though illness delayed him, according to the Handbook of Texas. He recruited John B. Denton in Arkansas, and the two crossed the Red River in late September. Fowler reached San Augustine on October 19 and held a week's meeting before moving on to Houston, where he arrived November 19. The next June 21 he married Mrs. Missouri M. Lockwood Porter of Nacogdoches, a Kentucky native. Their son, Littleton Morris Fowler, became a prominent Methodist minister.

What the plaque says

First United Methodist Church of San Augustine The Rev. Littleton Fowler (1803-1846), one of the first Methodist missionaries sent to the Republic of Texas, came to San Augustine in October 1837. Within two weeks, a lot was given across the street from this site, trustees named, money raised, and Augustus Phelps given a contract to erect a Methodist church building. Masonic Lodge officials supervised the laying of the cornerstone on January 17, 1838. The Rev. Fowler and General Thomas J. Rusk addressed the 500 to 800 persons who gathered for the occasion. In his journal, the Rev. Fowler called it the first cornerstone laid for a Protestant church "west of the Sabine River in the infant Republic." It was also hailed as the first cornerstone laid in a foreign mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States. Angered when his horse was turned loose while he was in church, Columbus Cartwright in 1897 donated an entire block for a new sanctuary, providing space for hitching horses and parking buggies. The present structure was erected on the donated property by 1911, when the Rev. Littleton Morris Fowler, son of the founder, served as pastor. Methodists have worshiped in the same block of San Augustine's Main Street for more than 140 years. (1978)

Where it stands

31.52827, -94.10702 · Directions

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