Vine Grove Christian Church

Before emancipation the Live Oak plantation had no church or school, and teaching enslaved people to read was against the law. Freed families on the land included the Wyche, Dale, Brown, Wiggins and Carruthers names. Their log church, with a dirt floor, doubled as a school at a spot called Grapevine Corner. In 1895 the congregation paid eight dollars of the nine-dollar price for two acres, and the Taylors gave the last dollar. A one-teacher school there taught 41 Black pupils in 1904, and its district school moved to Van Vleck in 1939.

What the plaque says

Vine Grove Christian Church After the 1865 Emancipation Proclamation, many of the more than 100 slave who once farmed cotton and sugar cane for John L. Thorpe remain on former plantation land, forming the Live Oak community. In 1867 Joseph Yeaman, a white schoolteacher helped organize the Grapevine church, serving as its first pastor. The first church building was a log cabin with a dirt floor. By 1895 the church was known as the Mission Home School, later becoming the Vine Grove Christian Church. The congregation continues to uphold the values and traditions of its founders. (1998)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 12 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 — 21 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.

More markers nearby

• First Berean Missionary Baptist Church — 2.3 mi
• Lukefahr School Community — 3.1 mi
• Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church — 3.4 mi
• Site of Caney Post Office — 5.2 mi