New Fountain United Methodist Church

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about New Fountain United Methodist Church out in Medina County. Now settle in, because this story starts long before anybody laid a single stone. This stretch of Texas was known as Soldaten Kemp, which is to say soldiers' camp, and it earned that name as a rendezvous point for frontier military patrols, freighters, and all manner of folks moving along the San Antonio Road.

By the mid-nineteenth century, German immigrants had made it their home, and you get the sense this was a place where hard-working people put down roots and meant to stay. In 1858, the Reverend John Schaper organized a Methodist congregation right here in that community. Two years later, a church building had been erected.

That's fast work for a frontier settlement, and it tells you something about how much these folks wanted a house of worship. Now, a congregation growing in good soil tends to outgrow its first walls. By 1871, church members John and Aalke Wiemers and Friedrich and Antje Muennink deeded land for a new church building.

Four names on a deed, four people saying, this matters enough to give ground for. Then comes the part of the story I want you to picture clearly. A man named Jacob Bader steps forward.

He was the pastor. He was also a stonemason. And he built that new church himself, with native stone, with his own hands, with help from his parishioners beside him.

A preacher who could lay a sermon and lay a wall. The building that rose wasn't just a church. For many years it was the only meeting hall the community had.

Every gathering, every vote, every moment of public life in that place happened inside walls Jacob Bader built. The story doesn't end there. During the pastorate of the Reverend C.

A. Lehmberg, the church was enlarged, in 1900 and 1901, because the community had kept on growing. From Soldaten Kemp to a stone church built by a preacher's hands, this little congregation in Medina County just kept building, and building, and building forward.

What the marker says

This region, known as Soldaten Kemp (soldiers' camp) for its history as a rendezvous point for frontier military patrols, freighters and others on the San Antonio Road, was home to many German immigrants by the mid-19th century. The Rev. John Schaper organized a Methodist congregation here in 1858 and a church building was erected by 1860. Church members John and Aalke Wiemers and Friedrich and Antje Muennink deeded land for a new church building in 1871. Using native stone, pastor and stonemason Jacob Bader built the new church with help from his parishioners. For many years it was the community's only meeting hall. It was enlarged in 1900-01 during the pastorate of the Rev. C. A. Lehmberg. (1975, 2000)