Thursday, November 30, 2006

Historical Observances

Visitors to this site will be interested to know that two historical observances are planned in December. They both commerate events from 1871. The first is the 135th annivesary celebration of First UMC, Sour Lake, on Sunday, Dec. 10 at 11:00. The second will occur the following Saturday, December 16. It is the historical marker dedication at Leesville in memory of the ordination of Alejo Hernandez by the West Texas Conference of the MECS . The marker dedication will be at 1:30 p.m. at Leesville in Gonzales County.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

This Week in Texas Methodist History Nov. 26


Rabbi Henry Cohen Addresses Conference Dec. 2, 1910

The Texas Annual Conference met in Galveston in December, 1910 with Bishop Murrah presiding. Among the other events of that conference was a short address of greeting by one of the most important figures in Texas religious history, Rabbi Henry Cohen (1863-1952). Cohen's talk was "as to the spirit of comity and friendship that should exist between the Jewish and Christian civilizations.

Cohen had been born in London and lived in South Africa and Jamaica before coming to Temple B'nai Israel in Galveston in 1888. For the next sixty-plus years he was involved in a multitude of civic, philathropic, literary, and religious endeavors. He was active in the fight against the Ku Klux Klan, and for women's suffrage and the humane treatment of prisoners. His greatest national fame came because of his participation in the Galveston Movement. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries Eastern European Jews were sujected to vicious pogroms. One response was immigration to the United States. Jewish leaders in the northeastern US felt it best if newly arriving immigrants were dispersed throughout the United States rather than being crammed into the teeming cities. Galveston was thus the port of entry for 15,000 Jewish immigrants between 1907 and 1914.

Rabbi Cohen met the immigrant ships and provided social services and passage to inland cities in Texas via the rail system that centered on Galveston--especially Tyler, Palestine, Marshall, and Texarkana, all of which could be reached by fares of less than $5.00.

In addition to his rabbinic duties and civic volunteering, Cohen also found time to write a number of books and serve on several boards. One of those boards was the Seaman's Bethel, a project of the Southern Swedish Conference of the MEC.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

This Week in Texas Methodist History November 19

Ruter, Ayres, and Alexander Meet on the Sabine November 21, 1837

On the night of November 21, 1837 an unnamed tavern at Gaines Ferry on the Sabine River hosted one of the most interesting episodes in Texas Methodist history.

The Mission Board had authorized a Texas Mission consisting of the three men. The head of mission would be Martin Ruter, currently president of Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. He was to supervise the work of two younger men, Littleton Fowler, agent for LaGrange College in Alabama, and Robert Alexander of the Mississippi Conference.

Alexander was the first to arrive in Texas. He left Natchez, crossed the Sabine and preached at McMahan's. He organized the San Augustine Circuit on September 16 and proceeded west to John Wesley Kenney's in present-day Austin County. It had been Kenney who organized the camp meetings of 1834 and 1835 near his house. The 1835 meeting had resulted in an appeal for missionaries. Alexander spent October and most of November organizing churchers around Kenney's in the Brazos and Colorado River settlements. Fowler arrived at Kenney's on November 12. Alexander then began his journey back to Natchez to attend the Mississippi Annual Conference.

Alexander crossed the Sabine on November 21 and learned that Martin Ruter and David Ayres were also at Gaines Ferry.

Ruter had resigned his college presidency, loaded his family on a river boat and travelled down the Allegheny and Ohio Rivers to New Albany, Indiana. He made provisions for his family to stay in New Albany while he went to Texas. His brother, Calvin Ruter, was presiding elder of the New Albany District, and another brother, Alanson Ruter, was a boat captain who maintained a residence in New Albany. David Ayres, a loyal Methodist layman who had recently immigrated from Ithaca, New York, to northern Austin County Texas, also had a brother in New Albany, Silas Ayers. (David Ayres was the only one in his family to spell the family name "Ayres.")

Silas Ayers was a merchant Silas Ayers was a merchant who was providing financial backing for David Ayres and his Center Hill townsite development project. In coming to New Albany, Ayres was combining church and personal business.

Ruter and Ayres waited until the yellow fever epidemic of summer had abated with the coming of cool fall weather. After attending the Indiana Annual Conference which met in New Albany that year, they rode down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to Rodney, Mississippi, where they sucured horses for the overland trip across Louisiana. They, too, arrived at Gaines Crossing on November 21.

The three men stayed up all night talking about prospects for Methodism in the Republic of Texas. Ruter had never been in Texas, but was so enthusiastic for its prospects that he intended to move his family there. Ayres had already cast his lot with Texas, buyng up tens of thousands of acres of Texas land warrants. Alexander, at age 26, had his life and ministry before him. The next morning, November 22, they parted ways. Alexander went east to the Mississippi Annual Conference. Ayres and Ruter went on to Center Hill.

Two months later the three men were together again under far different circumstances. Alexander married Ayres's daughter, Eliza, at Center Hill. Martin Ruter officiated at the cerermony.

Ruter died the next May. He never set foot outside of Texas again. Ayres and Alexander lived until 1881 and 1882 respectively. As layman and preacher, as father-in-law and son-in-law, they were involved in almost every significant Texas Methodist enterprise for more than forty years.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

This Week in Texas Methodist History November 12

Merger Creates EUB Church November 16, 1946

The Wesleyan movement of the 18th century was by no means confined to English speakers. German speakers also became part of the movement. Very soon after the creation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, two other denominations were founded on Wesleyan principles, the United Brethren in Christ and the Evangelical Association. Both were composed almost completely of German speaking communities in Pennsylvania and other areas settled by German immigrants.

There is no record of denominational activity of either the UBC or EA in Texas until after the Civil War. German Methodists in Texas were adequately served by both the MEC and MECS. As railroads made immigration easier in the 1870s and 1880s, there were a few attempts by the Evangelical Association to form churches among northern immigrant communities in Texas. By World War I churches had been founded (and some abandoned) in Galveston, Temple, San Antonio, Sherman, Post Oak, Henrietta, Bowman, Lissie, and El Campo. The United Brethren attempted to form a North Texas/New Mexico/Oklahoma Conference, but was able to have only one short-lived church in Texas, that being Middlewater in Hartley County.

Assimilation of German immigrants after World War I diminished the need for a German language church. One solution to declining membership was a merger of the two denominations. Such merger was accomplished on November 16, 1946. The new denomination was called the Evangelical United Brethren (EUB). It continued until 1968 when it merged with the Methodist Church to become the United Methodist Church.

In 1968 there were seven EUB churches in Texas that became part of the UMC. They were First El Campo, Oaklawn in Houston, First Lissie, Zion Post Oak, First San Antonio, First Temple, and First Wichita Falls. The total membership was 1,247

This Week in Texas Methodist History November 12

Merger Creates EUB Church November 16, 1946

The Wesleyan movement of the 18th century was by no means confined to English speakers. German speakers also became part of the movement. Very soon after the creation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, two other denominations were founded on Wesleyan principles, the United Brethren in Christ and the Evangelical Association. Both were composed almost completely of German speaking communities in Pennsylvania and other areas settled by German immigrants.

There is no record of denominational activity of either the UBC or EA in Texas until after the Civil War. German Methodists in Texas were adequately served by both the MEC and MECS. As railroads made immigration easier in the 1870s and 1880s, there were a few attempts by the Evangelical Association to form churches among northern immigrant communities in Texas. By World War I churches had been founded (and some abandoned) in Galveston, Temple, San Antonio, Sherman, Post Oak, Henrietta, Bowman, Lissie, and El Campo. The United Brethren attempted to form a North Texas/New Mexico/Oklahoma Conference, but was able to have only one short-lived church in Texas, that being Middlewater in Hartley County.

Assimilation of German immigrants after World War I diminished the need for a German language church. One solution to declining membership was a merger of the two denominations. Such merger was accomplished on November 16, 1946. The new denomination was called the Evangelical United Brethren (EUB). It continued until 1968 when it merged with the Methodist Church to become the United Methodist Church.

In 1968 there were seven EUB churches in Texas that became part of the UMC. They were First El Campo, Oaklawn in Houston, First Lissie, Zion Post Oak, First San Antonio, First Temple, and First Wichita Falls. The total membership was 1,247

Saturday, November 04, 2006

This Week In Texas Methodist History Nov. 5

Umphrey Lee Inaugurated SMU President November 5-6, 1939

In ceremonies extending over two days in early November, 1939, the SMU community welcomed one of their own back home as president. Umphrey Lee had come to SMU for his M.A. (1916) after attending Trinity University. He had been elected SMU's first student body president. From 1919 to 1923 he served at the Wesley Bible Chair at the University of Texas at Austin. He then was appointed to Highland Park Methodist Church on the SMU campus. While there he finished his doctorate at Columbia (1931) and taught homiletics to SMU student in addition to building up the membership at Highland Park. A stint as Dean of the School of Religion at Vanderbilt University (1937-39) rounded out his experience.

The 1938 General Conference of the MECS elected SMU President Charles Selecman bishop thereby creating a vacancy at SMU. Bishop Ivan Lee Holt, who had been SMU Chaplain when Lee was a student, chaired the nominating committee. That committee submitted a list of eight candidates to the board, but Lee's election was a foregone conclusion. He felt he knew the board and the board knew him so well, he did not even interview with them. He was the unanimous choice.

In the fall of 1939 President Lee greeted the 1,821 students at a convocation in McFarlin Auditorium. His address to them naturally contained many references to the war that was about to change the lives of the young students so dramatically. One result of the war was a population boom in Dallas and a enrollment boom in US universities as a result of the G.I. Bill.

When the convocation at the opening of school for the fall semester, 1946 occurred, there were now 6,780 students enrolled. Lee's tenure as president was marked by dramatic increases in enrollement, faculty, and facilities. When he retired as president in 1954, he could point to eightteen buildings that had not been there in 1939.