Welcome to Centerville

William J. Seymour was born in Centerville on May 2, 1870, to parents who had been enslaved. He was the second of eight children; after his father died in 1891 he became the family's support. He left for Indianapolis and Cincinnati, then Houston, where Texas segregation kept him outside Charles Parham's classroom door, listening from the hall. In Los Angeles in 1906 a mission locked him out over his teaching, so he prayed with groups in private homes until the Azusa Street meetings began. By 1907 his paper, The Apostolic Faith, ran 40,000 copies. He died in 1922.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Grevemberg House Museum — 5.6 mi
  Franklin's 1851 Greek Revival townhouse, the official St. Mary Parish museum, saved from demolition by one vote and set in the Franklin Historic District on Bayou Teche.
• Wedell-Williams Aviation and Cypress Sawmill Museum — 9.4 mi
  A Louisiana State Museum in Patterson on the world's largest cypress sawmill town and the Wedell-Williams racing planes, with a theater and changing exhibits.
• Chitimacha Museum — 11 mi
  The Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana's own museum at Charenton: the tribe's account of its territory, the French wars and enslavement, the land held in trust, and river cane baskets.
• Cypremort Point State Park — 26 mi
  A 185-acre Vermilion Bay park reached by road, with a half-mile man-made beach, a marsh boardwalk, shore fishing and a boat launch, and a Chitimacha tradition of a great cypress here.

More markers nearby

• Murphy James Foster — 4.4 mi
• The Battle of Irish Bend — 4.6 mi
• Edward V. Loustalot — 5.3 mi
• Battle of Bisland — 5.3 mi