Trinity Episcopal Church

Bonham's Episcopalians began with a signed petition. On August 2, 1877, eleven residents asked Bishop Garrett for a mission. They included physicians, merchants, a gunsmith, a railway agent and one woman, the milliner Mary Lewis. He consented on September 22, and for four years the congregation met in homes and, by the Baptists' courtesy, in the First Baptist building. In December 1880 the church's women raised $789.50 in one afternoon toward a building. The cornerstone was laid on May 9, 1881, and a Pennsylvania church took an offering for it that fall.

What the plaque says

Trinity Episcopal Church Episcopal missionary work began in Fannin and surrounding counties in the mid-1870s, and Trinity Church was organized in Bonham as a mission in 1877. Services were held in the homes of church members, and in the First Baptist Church building for a few years. The Reverend T. B. Lawson deeded land in 1882 to the church for the site of a church building. During construction, the congregation were seated on rough planks. A crude board nailed on a strip of wood served as the altar. The frame church building was completed in 1883. Full parish status was granted to Trinity Episcopal Church in 1885. A rectory was added in 1886, with some rooms used as a school. Gifts in the early 1900s from church members included a handpainted memorial altar and a marble baptismal font. For many years the church continued without the benefit of a full-time resident priest, with priests from area churches conducting Sunday services. The church was returned to mission status. A fire in 1961 destroyed the historic church structure. A new cedar-sheathed church building reminiscent of the original structure was completed in 1962. One of the twelve founding churches of the Diocese of Dallas, the church has served the area for over 100 years. (1996)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 2.0 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 23 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Eisenhower State Park — 29 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.

More markers nearby

• First United Methodist Church of Bonham — steps away
• First Christian Church of Bonham — steps away
• Constantine Lodge No. 13, A. F. & A. M. — steps away
• Confederate Commissary — steps away