DUANE
Duane's take
The marker tells this story, and I'm just the one passing it along. Now, if you want to know how a man builds a church worthy of the ages, you start with a vision — and if you're very lucky, you start with a courthouse full of bricks. Annunciation Church in Harris County rises in the style of the great European churches, and that is no accident.
The man behind it was the Very Reverend Joseph Querat, a canon of the Cathedral of Lyons, France, who came to Texas as a missionary and gave this place twenty-six years of his life — from 1852 to 1878. When Father Querat decided to build, he didn't build small. He built in the image of what he knew from the old world, and he meant every stone of it.
Work began in 1867. Now here's where the story gets its Texas flavor. Father Querat, with the aid of his parishioners, bought the old Harris County Courthouse.
Not to use it as a courthouse, mind you. To get the bricks. For the foundation.
That is a man who knows what he needs and goes and gets it, and the whole congregation had his back when he did it. The church was completed in 1874. But the story wasn't finished yet.
A few years later, between 1881 and 1884, the sacristy and the steeple were added — drawn up by a man named Nicholas J. Clayton, born 1849, and by the time he put pencil to paper on this job, already earning his name as one of the leading architects in Texas in the late nineteenth century. Clayton's additions rose to meet what Querat had built, and together they made something that has endured.
A French missionary's dream, a demolished courthouse, a congregation that showed up with their sleeves rolled, and one of Texas's finest architects finishing the crown. That church didn't just get built. It got earned.
What the marker says
In style of great European churches. The work of the very Rev. Joseph Querat, a canon of Cathedral of Lyons, France, and missionary to Texas 1852-1878. Begun 1867 when Father Querat (with aid of parishioners) bought old Harris County Courthouse to get bricks for foundation; completed 1874. Sacristy and steeple were added 1881-1884 by plans of Nicholas J. Clayton (1849-1916), a leading Texas architect of the late 19th century. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1969