Soules Chapel Methodist Church

The chapel's name comes from a bishop. Joshua Soule was elected a Methodist bishop in 1824, after declining consecration four years earlier, and he sided with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, when the church split in 1844. He died in Nashville in 1867. G. H. Baird's 1946 county history says a bishop named Soules probably was the first minister to preach here, and dates Mr. Williams's gift of the church land to the early 1880s. The plaque's deed to trustees is 1871. Baird adds that the Methodist church was the only one in the community.

What the plaque says

Soules Chapel Methodist Church The Rev. Joshua Soule (1781-1867), original bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, visited East Texas in 1846. Worshiping in a log cabin across the road from this site as early as the 1850s, settlers gave his name to their church. The cemetery here was in use by 1856. L. E. Harkey and M. T. L. Williams on Dec. 21, 1871, deeded to Soules Chapel trustees James Bryce, Oran Hinson, Peter Hogan and Nathan H. Morris about six acres of land at this site. The present sanctuary was built after a destructive fire in 1977. (1977)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Bob Sandlin State Park — 16 mi
  A 1987 state park on a 9,000-acre reservoir, where a Republic of Texas stockade called Fort Sherman stood in 1838 and the Caddo lived from A.D. 800 to 1860, now with fishing piers, trails and cabins.
• Governor Hogg Shrine — 22 mi
  Quitman's 27-acre city park, once a state historical park, where two houses tied to James Stephen Hogg's marriage stand beside an arboretum, a nature walk and the grounds of the Old Settlers Reunion.
• Daingerfield State Park — 26 mi
  A pine-and-hardwood park built in 1935-39 by a white and a Black Civilian Conservation Corps company, with a dammed lake, Bass Lodge and a 2.4-mile loop trail around the water.
• Tyler State Park — 27 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.

More markers nearby

• Bethlehem School — 4.7 mi
• Harmony I.S.D. — 5.5 mi
• Rhonesboro — 6.3 mi
• Kelsey School — 6.6 mi