St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church

The church sits in a community that has changed counties and names. Cedar Lake was once part of Brazoria County and by the 1890s was counted in Matagorda County. Its post office was called Dura, then Duroc, in 1854, and Roweville from 1890 to 1893. In 1896 Velasco was its banking and railroad point. The Handbook of Texas lists five schools and five teachers for 266 Black pupils there in 1906, and one school with one teacher for six white pupils. The figures describe a rural district that was overwhelmingly Black.

What the plaque says

St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church In 1867, African Americans in the Cedar Lake Community organized St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church with help from Rev. Israel Campbell. Rev. Dennis Gray was appointed the first pastor. The church met in log cabins and sometimes under a tent until 1873, when Christopher Higgins donated two acres to the church. The Freedmen's Bureau supplied some building materials, allowing the community to build a permanent structure for worship which also served as the first school for blacks within the community. A portion of that land serves as a cemetery for church and community members. For more than 150 years, St. Paul has persevered, continuing today to provide a strong presence working to improve prospects for present and future generations. (2019)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 4.8 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 16 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 22 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.

More markers nearby

• Cedar Lake Salt Works — 1.9 mi
• Bethlehem Christian Church — 4.0 mi
• Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church — 5.3 mi
• First Berean Missionary Baptist Church — 8.6 mi