Greenvine Baptist Church

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Out in Washington County, there's a congregation with a story that stretches back to before the smoke of the Civil War even started rising. The Ebenezer German Baptist Church was organized in 1861, born out of a revival preached by a man named Frank Kiefer.

Kiefer, who came into this world in 1833 and left it in 1909, was a German immigrant who had found his way to the Baptist faith, and when he preached that revival, something took root. Now the congregation needed a place to meet, and they found one in a log cabin owned by a man named Michael Möller. Nothing fancy, nothing permanent, but it was theirs.

The church went by another name too, one that stuck easier on the tongue: Greenvine Baptist Church. That's the name folks knew it by, and that's the name that carried. Then in 1868, the pastorship passed to the Reverend F.

J. Gleiss, born in 1826, gone in 1912, another German immigrant, and a man who had crossed over from the Methodist tradition before arriving here. He succeeded Kiefer and took up the work.

By 1870, the congregation had purchased this very site. And nine years later, in 1879, they built a sanctuary on it. A real, standing, permanent place of worship.

For decades after that, the services were conducted entirely in the German language. Think about that. Generation after generation, the hymns, the sermons, the prayers, all in German, right here in Washington County, Texas.

That tradition held until 1947, when English finally took over. Nearly a century of a congregation finding its voice, and then finding a new one. The marker was placed as part of the Texas Sesquicentennial, 1836 to 1986, and it's a fitting tribute to a church that outlasted empires, language, and time.

What the marker says

Ebenezer German Baptist Church was organized in 1861 following a revival preached by Frank Kiefer (1833-1909), a German immigrant and convert to the Baptist faith. Commonly known as Greenvine Baptist Church, the congregation first met in a log cabin owned by Michael Möller. The Rev. F. J. Gleiss (1826-1912), a former Methodist minister and fellow German immigrant, succeeded Kiefer as pastor in 1868. This site was purchased in 1870, and a sanctuary was built in 1879. Services were conducted in the German language until replaced by English in 1947. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986