First Methodist Church of Fredericksburg

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the First Methodist Church of Fredericksburg. Now, some stories start with a bang. This one starts with a mission, a minister, and a handful of German families planting roots so deep in the Hill Country that they're still holding on today.

The year was 1849. The Reverend Eduard Schneider arrived with a purpose: to found a German mission, right there in Fredericksburg, Gillespie County. And what he built would become the oldest Methodist church in the entire Hill Country.

Let that settle in for a moment. The oldest. In the whole Hill Country.

Now, a church is only as strong as the people who sign their names to it first, and the charter members of this one read like a roll call of determination. Melchior and Rosine Bauer. Johann and Margaretha Durst.

Friedrich and Sophie Ellebracht. Ernst and Dorothea Houy. Ferdinand and Maria Kneese, and Ludwig Kneese.

Heinrich and Catharine Steihl. Jacob and Catharine Treibs. And Fritz and Fredericka, who went by Mary, Winkel.

Families, couples, individuals, all of them saying yes, we are building something here that will last. And brother, did it last. Six years on, in 1855, during the pastorate of the Reverend C.

A. Grote, the congregation did not settle for modest. They quarried native stone and raised a church forty feet wide and sixty feet long.

Stone pulled from the land they were living on. Built to endure. And endure it did, through remodelings in 1912 to 1914, again in 1923, and again from 1948 to 1949.

Each generation putting their hands to it, keeping it standing, keeping it serving. That native stone church, founded on a German mission in 1849, is still doing exactly what Reverend Schneider and those charter families set it up to do. Some things in Texas just refuse to quit.

What the marker says

Oldest Methodist church in the Hill Country, founded 1849 as a German mission by the Rev. Eduard Schneider. The charter members: Melchior and Rosine Bauer, Johann and Margaretha Durst, Friedrich and Sophie Ellebracht, Ernst and Dorothea Houy, Ferdinand and Maria Kneese, Ludwig Kneese, Heinrich and Catharine Steihl, Jacob and Catharine Treibs, Fritz and Fredericka (Mary) Winkel. In 1855, during pastorate of the Rev. C. A. Grote, a 40 x 60-foot native stone church was built. It still serves after 1912-14, 1923, and 1948-49 remodelings.