Shorter Chapel, A. M. E. Church

The bishop the church is named for presided over the A.M.E. Church's first conference in Texas. Barred from Texas and most of the slaveholding South before the Civil War, the church sent its first missionary, M. M. Clark, who reached Galveston in 1866, and Bishop Jabez P. Campbell of New Orleans oversaw the early congregations. Bishop James A. Shorter opened the first Texas Conference at Galveston on October 22, 1868, with about 3,000 members and probationers. By 1890 the church counted 23,000 in four conferences, and by 1926 it had 34,000, second only to the Baptists among Black churchgoers.

What the plaque says

Shorter Chapel, A. M. E. Church Organized in 1875, this was one of the first black churches in Giddings. The congregation was named for the Rev. James A. Shorter (1817-1887), ninth bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The Rev. Anthony Anderson (1843-1922), one of the founders of Shorter Chapel, provided lumber for the first church building. That structure was destroyed by a storm in 1915. Members now worship in the third building erected at this site. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 5.5 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.
• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 15 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.
• Round Top and Festival Hill — 17 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.
• Monument Hill and Kreische Brewery State Historic Sites — 21 mi
  A shared tomb on the Colorado River bluff for the men of the Dawson fight and the black bean lottery, beside the ruins of a German stonemason's spring-fed brewery.

More markers nearby

• St. Paul Baptist Church — 0.3 mi
• First National Bank — 0.4 mi
• County Named for Beloved Confederate General Robert E. Lee — 0.4 mi
• Lee County — 0.4 mi