Saint Paul's Episcopal Church

The church building that came here in 1870 left behind a town that had bet on the river. Washington-on-the-Brazos had an Episcopal mission from 1848 and about 750 people by 1856, but in 1858 it refused the Houston and Texas Central an $11,000 bonus, and the line went to Hempstead and then Navasota. Steamboats stopped calling, and in the 1860s most residents left for Brenham or Navasota, moving houses with them. By 1889 most of the old townsite was cultivated fields, and its last historic buildings burned in 1912.

What the plaque says

Saint Paul's Episcopal Church In 1864, Bishop Alexander Gregg organized an Episcopal mission in Navasota that became a parish in 1866. Originally known as the Church of the Holy Comforter, it was renamed in 1870, when the church building from St. Paul's in Washington (7 mi. SW) was acquired and relocated to Navasota on land donated by the Houston and Texas Central Railway. The congregation completed a new church building in 1891. Throughout its history, St. Paul's has been actively involved in the community with worship, education, and outreach programs. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Navasota — steps away
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 6.0 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.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 6.0 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.
• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 8.9 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.

More markers nearby

• First Baptist Church of Navasota — steps away
• Site of Freeman Inn — steps away
• First United Methodist Church of Navasota — steps away
• La Bahia Trail — 0.2 mi