Trinity Lutheran Church of Frelsburg

The plaque dates the congregation to 1855, but its paper trail starts earlier. Trinity's records at the Nesbitt Memorial Library in Columbus open with baptisms from 1841, fourteen years before Rev. C. Roehm organized the church, and the early books are in German. Church council minutes run from 1855 and congregation minutes from 1862. The synod archive at Seguin lists about twenty-seven pastors who served Trinity, usually preaching at New Ulm as well and sometimes at Mentz, Fayetteville and Shaws Bend. The library has posted transcriptions of the baptism registers online.

What the plaque says

Trinity Lutheran Church of Frelsburg William Frels came to Texas from Germany in 1834 and joined other pioneers settling here. Frontier pastors such as the Rev. J. C. Ervendberg cared for their religious needs. In 1855 Frels gave sites for a church and cemetery and the Rev. C. Roehm organized the congregation. For years the pastors taught a day school. The Texas Evangelical Synod met here on various occasions. The present sanctuary replaced an earlier one destroyed in a windstorm. In 1930 Trinity joined with other congregations to originate the American Lutheran Church. English language services began in 1932. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stafford Opera House — 11 mi
  A cattleman's bank and theater of 1886 on the Columbus square, in a river town Sam Houston burned in 1836 and a county marked by a long feud and a 1935 lynching.
• Round Top and Festival Hill — 16 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.
• St. John the Baptist Catholic Church (Ammannsville) — 19 mi
  A wooden Carpenter Gothic church built in 1919 after storm and fire took two before it, its dusty-rose interior painted by an artist whose name was lost for decades.
• Monument Hill and Kreische Brewery State Historic Sites — 20 mi
  A shared tomb on the Colorado River bluff for the men of the Dawson fight and the black bean lottery, beside the ruins of a German stonemason's spring-fed brewery.

More markers nearby

• Frelsburg — steps away
• Mike Muckleroy — 2.7 mi
• Mary Theresa Juergens — 2.9 mi
• Site of Town of New Ulm — 3.9 mi