Webster Chapel United Methodist Church

The church on South Wheeler Street is a small Gothic Revival building, rectangular, of wood frame faced in brick. The brick veneer came in a 1951 remodeling of the 1889 sanctuary. The steeple still has its splayed base and cross-gables, though the spire is gone. Lancet arches top the upper window sashes, and cloverleaf windows sit above the double front door, which opens east. A 1983 survey for the National Register found the interior plan unchanged and called the church an important landmark of Victoria's Black community, in the Diamond Hill neighborhood of the original town's southeast quarter.

What the plaque says

Webster Chapel United Methodist Church This fellowship was organized shortly after the Civil War to serve the newly freed slaves of the Victoria area. Originally a Methodist Episcopal Church, it began in 1871 when church trustees George Ware, Thads Phillips, Isaac Smith, Alexander Bonds, James Maulding, John Hall, Madison Gafford, Abner James, and George Washington purchased land at this site for the construction of a sanctuary. Many of the early members had attended services of the First Methodist Church of Victoria as slaves. The Rev. N. Webster, for whom the church was later named, served as the first pastor. The first church building, a frame sancturary, was completed here in 1889. Later changes, which included additions to the structure and extensive interior remodeling , were a result of the church's continued growth. Many members were added in the 1930s and 1940s as residents of the surrounding area moved to Victoria in search of jobs. Many prominent pastors and members have been associated with Webster Chapel United Methodist Church. Since the days following the Civil War, it has played a significant role in the growth and development of Victoria's Black community. (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• De León Plaza — 0.4 mi
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 1.9 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.
• Fannin Battleground State Historic Site — 16 mi
  The open prairie east of Goliad where Fannin's retreating column formed a square short of the Coleto Creek timber on March 19, 1836, and surrendered the next day.
• Fannin Memorial Monument — 25 mi
  The 1938 pink granite memorial over the common grave of Fannin's men, shot on the roads out of Goliad on Palm Sunday 1836, the grave itself found again only in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• Palestine Missionary Baptist Church — steps away
• The Victoria Advocate — 0.2 mi
• Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church — 0.3 mi
• Site of Victoria's First Church — 0.3 mi