Henry's Chapel United Methodist Church

The Handbook of Texas says Henry's Chapel took its name from an early local church and names no minister. It reports that settlers from Arkansas are said to have arrived in the 1820s, and records a school by 1897 with 27 pupils. In the mid-1930s the community had two churches, two stores and about 75 residents. Both stores and one church have since closed, and in the early 1990s the Handbook found a scattered rural settlement with a single church. It reports the population as 75 in both 1990 and 2000.

What the plaque says

Henry's Chapel United Methodist Church HENRY'S CHAPEL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH THE COMMUNITY OF HENRY'S CHAPEL WAS ESTABLISHED SIX MILES FROM TROUP AND NAMED FOR CUMBERLAND PRESBYTERIAN MINISTER WILLIAM HENRY. BEFORE 1914 MANY METHODISTS WORSHIPED AT BETHEL LOCATED TWO MILES NORTH OF HENRY'S CHAPEL. R.E. BARRON DONATED LAND TO THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH WHICH, IN TURN, WAS DONATED TO THE METHODIST CHURCH TO ESTABLISH HENRY'S CHAPEL METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH. IN 1968, THE DENOMINATION CHANGED THE CHURCH NAME TO UNITED METHODIST. CIRCUIT RIDER PREACHER JOE WELLS BECAME THE FIRST MINISTER AND SERVED OTHER CHURCHES IN THE MARSHALL DISTRICT. IN THE EARLY DAYS, THE CHURCH HOSTED SUMMER REVIVALS WHERE PRAYER MEETINGS AND SERVICES WERE CONDUCTED UNDER A BRUSH ARBOR. CHURCH MEMBERSHIP GREW DURING THE OIL BOOM OF THE 1930s AND, AS A RESULT, HENRY'S CHURCH BUILT A PARSONAGE AND HIRED REVEREND J.L. MCADAMS AS THE FIRST PERMANENT MINISTER. THE YOUTH WERE ORGANIZED IN 1932 UNDER THE NAME EPWORTH LEAGUE AND, IN 1939, CHANGED THE NAME TO METHODIST YOUTH FELLOWSHIP TO REFLECT THE MERGER OF THREE DIFFERENT FACTIONS OF METHODISTS. WOMEN ORGANIZED IN 1935 UNDER THE NAME WOMAN'S MISSIONARY SOCIETY. IN ADDITION TO GIVING SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE, THE WOMEN'S GROUP SUPPORTED MISSIONS AND RAISED FUNDS TO FINANCE THE BUILDING OF A KITCHEN, FELLOWSHIP ROOM, AND OTHER CHURCH IMPROVEMENTS. THROUGH MANY ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CHANGES, THE CHURCH CONTINUES TO MEET THE NEEDS OF THE COMMUNITY AS A PLACE OF WORSHIP AND SPIRITUAL GROWTH AS WELL AS SOCIAL AND CIVIC EVENTS. (2012)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 11 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• East Texas Oil Museum — 21 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 23 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.
• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 23 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.

More markers nearby

• Knoxville — 2.5 mi
• First Presbyterian Church, U. S. of Troup — 4.9 mi
• Site of Griffin — 5.3 mi
• Robert Graves Stadler — 5.5 mi