DUANE
Get the App
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight with a little road dust on top. When Victoria was settled in 1824, Texas was still part of Mexico, and Protestant churches were simply not part of the picture. Not a one.
So the early Methodists in this corner of Texas had to make do with itinerant ministers, preachers who rode the circuit and brought the Word to wherever folks happened to be gathered. After Texas won independence in 1836, those ministers started making their way to this area, feeling out the territory, testing the soil. Then in 1839, the Reverend Jesse Hord arrived.
Born in 1808, died in 1886, and in the years between those bookends he served as a missionary sent all the way from the Mississippi Conference of the Methodist Church. He preached here, in Victoria, and planted something that would take root. The congregation itself was formally organized in 1840, with the Reverend Joseph P.
Sneed as its first pastor. Sneed, who lived from 1804 to 1881, led what would become the first Protestant church in the city of Victoria. Let that sit for a moment.
The first. Among the early pastors who followed was the Reverend John Wesley DeVilbiss, born 1818, died 1883, a man who helped conduct the first Protestant service ever held in San Antonio, back in 1844. And then there was the Reverend James E.
Ferguson, born 1824, died 1876. Now that name might ring a bell, because his son, also James E. Ferguson, born 1871, died 1944, grew up to become governor of Texas.
The apple, as they say, did not roll far from the tree. The congregation moved around a bit in its early years. Methodists worshipped first on South Street, then picked up and moved in 1852 to a small frame building on Santa Rosa Street.
By 1876, the steadily growing congregation had settled onto this very site, in a frame structure built to hold them. Then the name changed. Between 1896 and 1910, the church was known as Callender Chapel, named in memory of a prominent member, a lawyer by the name of W.L.
Callender. Now this old frame sanctuary had seen some trouble. A hurricane damaged it in 1886.
It survived that. But in 1910, fire destroyed it entirely. The congregation didn't blink for long.
By 1911 they had replaced it with a masonry structure. Something built to last. Then in 1960, they built the present facility.
And by the 1970s, this historic fellowship had grown to a membership of over fourteen hundred people. From one itinerant preacher riding into a Mexican province in 1839, to fourteen hundred souls gathered under one roof. That's not just a church.
That's a Texas story.
What the marker says
When Victoria was settled in 1824, Texas was part of Mexico and there were no Protestant churches. Itinerant Methodist ministers began to visit this area soon after Texas won independence in 1836. The Rev.Jesse Hord (1808-86), a missionary sent to this region by the Mississippi Conference of the Methodist Church, preached here in 1839. This congregation, formed in 1840 with the Rev. Joseph P. Sneed (1804-81) as pastor, was the first Protestant church in Victoria. Among its early pastors were the Rev. John Wesley DeVilbiss (1818-83), who helped conduct the first Protestant service in San Antonio in 1844, and the Rev. James E. Ferguson (1824-76), the father of Texas governor James E. Ferguson (1871-1944). Methodists worshipped first on South Street, then moved in 1852 to a small, frame building on Santa Rosa Street. In 1876 the steadily growing congregation occupied a frame structure on this site. Between 1896 and 1910, the church was known as Callender Chapel in memory of a prominent member, lawyer W.L. Callender. Damaged by a hurricane in 1886, the frame sanctuary was destroyed by a fire in 1910 and replaced by a masonry structure in 1911. The present facility was built in 1960. In the 1970s, the historic fellowship recorded a membership of over 1400. (1976)