St. Paul United Methodist Church

St. Paul began as a Black Methodist Episcopal congregation, a choice many freed people made after the Civil War. The Handbook of Texas says the northern Methodist Episcopal Church recruited Black members hard, claimed to be a biracial body without segregation, and used its Freedmen's Bureau ties to secure church buildings. Yet by 1876 Black and White members had formed separate conferences, and Black ministers rose slowly in its hierarchy. A city tourism site dates St. Paul's founding to 1866, when members split from Reedy Chapel.

What the plaque says

St. Paul United Methodist Church Founded in the late 1860s, St. Paul Methodist Church can trace its history through two earlier Methodist congregations in Galveston. Charter members of St. Paul Church included Methodists from the Reedy Chapel Methodist Church (originally part of the Ryland Chapel congregation), who broke away when that membership elected to join the African Methodist Episcopal denomination. The Rev. Samuel Osborn served as first pastor of the new church. A sanctuary was built on the eastern end of the island on Avenue H between 8th and 9th streets. A larger building was later erected to serve the growing congregation, but was destroyed in the 1900 storm. Under the leadership of the Rev. Frank Gary, the congregation acquired property at this site and built a new sanctuary in 1902. The church has continued to thrive here, serving many generations of Galveston families. It is known locally as the "Mother Church" of Galveston's Wesley Tabernacle United Methodist Church. St. Paul Methodist Church counts among its members descendants of some of its founding families. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• 1892 Bishop's Palace — steps away
  Nicholas Clayton's stone house on Broadway for the railroad lawyer Walter Gresham, later home to Galveston's Catholic bishops and one of the most admired Victorian houses in the country.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 0.6 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 — 0.7 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 — 0.8 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

• The Rt. Rev. Monsignor Marius Etienne Chataignon — steps away
• Former Site of Heidenheimer's Castle — steps away
• George Washington Chapter - DAR — 0.2 mi
• Site of Galveston Seminary — 0.4 mi