Wesley United Methodist Church

About this property

The Wesley United Methodist Church in Austin, Texas, United States, was founded in 1865, at the end of the American Civil War. Its original members were Austin-area freedmen, and it remains a predominantly African-American congregation. On March 4, 1865, the Reverend Joseph Welch, presiding elder of the Texas District of the Mississippi Mission Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, presided over the meeting at which Wesley was founded. This historical meeting was held in the basement of the old Tenth Street M. E. Church, South in Austin, Texas. The day following the founding of Wesley, the first quarterly conference of the new church was held. The first trustees were Milton Wright, Thomas Merridy, Tom King, Simon Dedrick, Grant Woods, Henry Shelly, Samuel Hamilton, and Reverend Isaac Wright. Isaac Wright was also the first pastor of Wesley. This tenure of service covered the formative period from March 1865 to January 1868. The West Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized on January 22, 1874. Included among the ministers present at the organizational meeting of the conference was the first pastor of Wesley, Isaac Wright. When the church was opened for membership at least 275 persons joined. Assisting Wright were the ministers Friend, Spencer Hardwell, and John Boyd, each of whom subsequently served as pastor of Wesley. These ministers and the Rev. B. F. Williams led the congregation during the nine years from the founding of the church until the organization of the West Texas Conference in 1874. "The dimensions were about 40x60 feet." The floor was of dirt. The steps were logwood. The seating capacity was small. The benches were made of slab board. There was a lamp irregularly kept, fastened to the side of the wall. When this lamp was installed in place of the individual candles, there was great rejoicing." As Wesley progressed, it broadened its scope and attracted new members, and in less than two decades a larger building was needed; in the spring of 1882, the cornerstone was laid for a new church at the corner of Ninth and Neches Streets. This building, containing approximately twice the floor space of the "First Wesley", was completed at an estimated cost of US$22,000, exclusive of church furniture valued at over $2,500. The new church had a pastor's study, a library for Sunday School books and literature, choir materials, and a six-room parsonage for the minister. For several years Samuel Huston College (now Huston–Tillotson University) held most of its classes in the church. By the end of the second decade of the 20th century, not only had Wesley Methodist Church grown, but also the city of Austin had become a major urban community in Central Texas. There was a need to expand the facilities of the Austin Public Schools (former name of the school district during the era of segregation) now known as the Austin Independent School District (AISD). Therefore, in 1928, the Austin School Board acquired the properties of the church for $17,500. Earlier, under the ministerial leadership of the Reverend L. H. Richardson, the church purchased a plot of ground facing Hackberry, Navasota, and San Bernard Streets for future use.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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