This Week in Texas Methodist History January 15 Morris, Whipple, and Clark Visit Ruter Grave January 1842 In early December I was invited to give the dedicatory address for t unveiling of the Texas Historical Commission’s marker honoring the Methodist church at Washington on the Brazos. Title to the property was secured by trustees in February 1838. One of those trustees was Martin Ruter. The following May Ruter died there, and the church was renamed in his honor. The town and the church did not survive the transition from the steamboat era to the railroad era, and the church fell into disrepair. Today there is a fine state park with museum, visitor’s center, living history farm, and one of the most beautiful picnic areas in the state. As of December it also has a historical marker for the Methodist church. I chose to speak about the visit to the site by Bishop Thomas A. Morris, and the Reverends John Clark and Josiah Whipple in January 1842 Bishop Morris left his home in Ohio in September 1841 and conducted annual conferences in Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas and finally arrived in San Augustine, Texas the last week of December, 1841 to preside over the Texas Conference. He had recruited two transfers to Texas from Illinois, Josiah Whipple and John Clark. Both were tpo play important roles in Texas Methodist history. You may read about them in previous blogs. After presiding over the Texas Confeerence, Morris and his companions did a very strange thing. Although Mrs. Morris was dying, instead of returning home to Ohio, the group headed west. Their destination was the frontier town of Austin, the rude capital of the Republic of Texas. Bishop MJorris had a son, Francis Asbury Morris who had just ended a term as acting Attorney General of the Republic of Texas. He had assumed the position from A.G. James Webb who had been dispatched by President Lamar on a quixotic mission to try to secure diplomatic recognition from Mexico. Webb as a prominent Methodist layman so oone presumes the youthful Morris got the job through those church connections. Sam Houston had been inaugurated in December for his second term as president so the Lamar administration was now unemployed. Morris continued his journey to Austin to retrieve his son and tanke him home. They hoped to get back to Ohio before Mrs. Morris died. In January they paused at Washington on the Brazos to visit Ruter’s grave. Here is the diary entry Thursday, 13th, the country appeared less inviting as we neared the Brazos river, though the bottom, on the east side, about three miles across, is rich enough to be very muddy. The river is, perhaps, eighty yards wide, and the banks very high and steep, but at present not much depth of water. As we ascended the hill from the ferry on the west side, we entered the town of Washing- ton, late the seat of justice for Washington county, which contains, probably, about fifty or sixty houses, and is apparently on the decline, though in the midst of a fine country. Having proceeded west to the middle of the town, we turned at right angles to the north, about three hundred yards, to the old graveyard, which is situated on a dry ridge in open woods. Our business was to seek out the grave of Dr. Ruter, the apostle of Methodism in Texas, who died at his post May 16, 1838. The mourn- ful spot sought for was easily found without a guide, the grave being inclosed by a stone wall, and covered with a white marble slab, three feet wide and six long, with a suit- able inscription. At the foot of the slab stands a small hickory-tree, hung with Spanish moss, waving in the breeze over the charnel-house. As we stood under this tree reading the solemn epitaph, the sun was disappearing in the west, while a thousand thoughts of the past rushed upon our minds, and forcibly reminded us that our own days would soon be numbered. With Dr. Ruter I had often united in preaching the Gospel to crowded assemblies in Ohio and Kentucky. He now rests from all his toil, enjoying the promised reward ; and if faithful to the grace given, may I not hope soon to join with him in the song of final and everlasting triumph? When we read on the cold marble, "thirty-seven years an itinerant minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and superintendent of the first mission of that Church in the republic of Texas," and then remembered that the same mission had already become a respectable annual conference, and was still in- creasing, the thought arose, whereunto will this mission grow, and what cause of rejoicing must this be to its first superintendent forever? Our visiting the graveyard at sundown in a village where we knew no one, and where no one knew us, seemed to excite some curiosity. A col- ored boy, sent no doubt for the purpose, came and inquired whence we journeyed? Our answer was, "Into all the world." That night we were kindly received and enter- tained at the house of brother Lynch, sheriff of the county, two miles west of town. Yours, truly, T. A. Morris. You were wondering. Did they make it home to see wife and mother before she died? Yes. They got home in February and Mrs. Morris died in May.