The Old Methodist Churchyard

Montgomery was headquarters of a Methodist circuit that covered all the country between the Brazos and Trinity rivers, from Cypress Creek north to the Old San Antonio Road. At least eleven preachers rode it between 1838 and 1850, among them Isaac L. G. Strickland and George W. Rabb. The first church building, Alexander Chapel, was dedicated in town on July 20, 1851, on land James McCown sold the church for ten dollars. It was named for the pioneering missionary Robert Alexander.

What the plaque says

The Old Methodist Churchyard In Jan. 1839, the Rev. Isaac Strickland organized a Methodist Church whose members soon built a log meetinghouse on this site donated by founders of the town of Montgomery. The churchyard came into use for burials during the 1840s. When Pastor G. W. Rabb was dying in 1851, he requested burial beneath the altar of the frame church then being built to replace the log cabin. His grave and a monument commemorating pioneer circuit riders now (1976) mark the original Methodist Church site. The church and the nearby parsonage, which is said to have been the first Methodist parsonage built in Texas, were relocated in 1908. A tabernacle later erected beside the cemetery has also been demolished. A stone in this cemetery commemorates a soldier of the American Revolution who helped settle this county and died here. Churchyard burials included veterans of the War of 1812, the Texas War for Independence, Mexican War, and Civil War, as well as many other pioneers, state and county officials, merchants, ministers, and physicians. In some of the unmarked graves are travelers who died here among strangers. Although a new cemetery opened in 1868, this one was also used until no space remained. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 18 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.
• Navasota — 23 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 28 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 28 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.

More markers nearby

• John M. Wade — steps away
• Lake Creek Settlement — steps away
• Charles Bellinger Stewart — steps away
• Town of Montgomery — steps away