Shiloh A. M. E. Church

Shiloh belongs to a denomination that was not allowed to operate in Texas before the war. The Handbook of Texas says the African Methodist Episcopal Church grew from Richard Allen's 1787 protest against racial discrimination in a Philadelphia church, and was barred from most of the slaveholding South. Its first Texas missionary, M. M. Clark, reached Galveston in 1866. The first Texas conference met here on October 22, 1868, and claimed 3,000 members and probationers. Black Methodists who had worshipped in their enslavers' churches now had one of their own.

What the plaque says

Shiloh A. M. E. Church One of oldest churches in Galveston. Congregation was organized before 1870, when former Galvestonian Henry H. Brower sold this church site to the Shiloh African Methodist Episcopal Church. Purchase was made through Brower's agent, Nahor B. Yard. Acting for the church were trustees Peter Burns, William Davis, and Solomon Reily. The churchmen of 1870 represented a hopeful ethnic group. With faith in their God and with modest funds, Shiloh members paid off $500 in debts on their property by 1877. An 1894 hurricane destroyed house that was considered the original church. Led by the Rev. Warren, members erected a small new frame building. However, in the visitation of the great Galveston storm of 1900, this was destroyed. Again the members struggled and, under the Rev. D. Reese, built another sanctuary, which served until razed in 1922. Present $36,000 structure was erected in 1923. Nine ministers have begun sacred labors in this church. Shiloh's leadership at start of its second century includes the Rt. Rev. O. L. Sherman, presiding bishop; Dr. Leland W. Jenkins, presiding elder; the Rev. David F. Harris, pastor. Incise in base: In Honor of Mrs. Hortense Smith; presented by son, Thomas J. Green (1971)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Moody Mansion — 0.3 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 0.4 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• The Strand — 0.8 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.
• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — 1.0 mi
  An iron barque launched in Aberdeen in 1877 that called at Galveston twice, ended up smuggling in the Adriatic, and was bought back from a Greek scrapyard to sail again from Pier 22.

More markers nearby

• Public Education for Blacks in Galveston — steps away
• Holy Rosary Catholic Church — steps away
• Avenue L Missionary Baptist Church — steps away
• Jack Johnson — steps away