This Week in Texas Methodist History December 22

Littleton Fowler Leaves Houston for East Texas  December 22, 1837

As last week’s column noted, Martin Ruter met Littleton Fowler in Houston in December 1837.  The two men were both missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church and had known each other when Fowler served in Kentucky and Ruter was book agent in Cincinnati and university president. 

Although Fowler had relatives in the Red River settlements, and the temptation to settle there must have been strong, he was a Methodist minister whose life was destined to ride circuits.  He arrived in Houston on November 19 and threw himself into the affairs of the Lone Star Republic.  On Monday, November 20, he was elected Chaplain of the Senate at a wage of $5 per day.  He joined the Grand Lodge of Texas and obtained the donation of ½ of a city block for a church building from the Allen Brothers.  

On December 19 the Congress of the Republic of Texas adjourned so Fowler was free to leave Houston. On Thursday December 22, Littleton Fowler left Houston for East Texas.  His traveling companions on the six day journey were Representatives  Kelsey Harris Douglass and Thomas Jefferson Rusk.  Both Douglass and Rusk were prominent in the political and military affairs of the Republic.  

Fowler and his company arrived in Nacogdoches on December 28 and spent the rest of the winter and early spring preaching alternate Sundays in San Augustine and Nacogdoches.  He also courted a widow in Nacogdoches, Missouri Lockwood Porter.  They married the following June and made their home in East Texas.