Lost Churches
St. Marks AME Church
ST. MARK AFRICAN METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH. St. Mark African Methodist Episcopal (
CME) Church was organized around the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries, in
Pilot Point, Texas. The date of St. Mark’s disbandment is currently unknown but reports from the
Dallas Express from the early 1920s confirm that the church was active around the turn of the century. Ms. Lucille Bruce, who resided in Pilot Point during her childhood recollects that there were African American Methodist churches in Pilot Point, which could have included St. Mark AME.
While St. Mark still operated in the African American Pilot Point community, the church hosted a conference called, “the three Quarterly Conferences,” in 1924. According to other reports from the Dallas Express, “Rev. Thomas” preached there in 1924. Other than the reports from the Dallas Express, there is little trace of St. Mark's existence.
Conference held at St. Mark (1919)
Church activites (1924)
Church activities (1924)
Morning Chapel CME Church
MORNING CHAPEL COLORED METHODIST CHURCH. Morning Chapel Colored Methodist Episcopal (
CME) Chuch operated in
Pilot Point, Texas during the early twentieth century. Currently, the
Dallas Express is the only known primary source that shows evidence of a CME church in operation in Pilot Point during that time period.
Rev. W.P Huntley was reported to have preached at Morning Chapel CME and attended a CME conference in 1883 in McKinney, Texas. Furthermore, the conference minutes from that year indicate that W.H Wright was appointed the circuit leader of the Pilot Point circuit, which included the CME churches in Pilot Point, Dexter, and Whitesboro. Churches within the same church circuit often heard sermons from the same preachers in the area during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
According to the
Dallas Express, in 1919, Rev. Huntley installed a church cornerstone into the church structure, which usually indicates the date of church construction. For instance,
County Line Baptist Church has two cornerstones that were installed to its current location. One cornerstone was from the original structure of the church from the late nineteenth century, and when the church underwent major renovations in the 1950s, they added a second cornerstone. One of the founding families of County Line Baptist, the Whitlows, attended a wedding held at the Morning Chapel CME in 1920. It was not uncommon for southerners during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to attend church services and church related activities affiliated with different church denominations.
One of the primary preachers of Morning Chapel CME was also a mason and a teacher in the Pilot Point area, Rev. Huntley. The cornerstones of the churches were often installed by masons, and Rev. Huntley was also a mason, who installed that particular cornerstone. Currently only one newspaper article from the Dallas Express in 1924 mentions the full name of the Morning Chapel CME Church in Pilot Point. Ms. Lucille Bruce, a resident of Pilot Point during the early twentieth century recalls a CME church in Pilot Point, but she says that African Americans in town, usually referred to the church as “the CME Church” before it presumably disbanded around the early to mid-twentieth century.
St. Mark & Morning Chapel activities (1920)
St. Mark and Morning Chapel activites (1920)
Morning Chapel services (1920)
Morning Chapel cornerstone sermon (1919)
Emberson Chapel
EMBERSON CHAPEL. Emberson Chapel was organized in
Pilot Point, Texas during the late-nineteenth century, and served as an African American school until 1946, before the building burned that year. According to reports from the
Post-Signal in the late nineteenth century, it seems that Emberson Chapel hosted a white church congregation before the building was used for an African American school by the 1940s. Professor E.W.D. Love was the principal of this school and also participated in several church-related activities, including
County Line Baptist Church during the early twentieth century. Love also conducted a Baptist Youth People’s Union B.Y.P.U. meeting in Dallas, in 1920. There is little surviving information about Emberson Chapel serving as an African American school in Pilot Point, other than the burning of the school and Love’s activities with the school.
In 1969, the Post-Signal reported in an obituary that Frank J. Heitzman, a former member of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, served on the Emberson Chapel School Board, and later the Pilot Point School Board, “after consolidation.” By 1971, the tract of land where Emberson Chapel formally stood, was sold to A.J. Miller for $2,604 by the Pilot Point Independent School district.
Unfortunately, St. Mark AME, Morning Chapel CME, and Emberson Chapel suffered same fate of disbandment as
St. John’s Baptist Church, and as a result there is little living memory of these churches and institutions that survives today. These churches could have disbanded for the same reasons as St. John’s Baptist, but that question currently remains unsolved.
Emberson Chapel Road (2018)
Emberson Chapel activities (1886)
Citations: Lucille Bruce, Interview by Sarah Cunningham UNT Oral History May 2, 2018
The Dallas Express (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 36, Ed. 1 Saturday, July 26, 1924, newspaper, July 26, 1924; Dallas, Texas. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth278502/m1/5/?q=%22St.+Mark%22+%22Pilot+Point%22: accessed May 4, 2018), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; The Dallas Express (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 38, Ed. 1 Saturday, August 2, 1924 (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth278503/m1/3/?q=%22St.+Mark%22+%22Pilot+Point%22: accessed May 4, 2018); Edward L. Ayers, Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 167; Pilot Point Chamber of Commerce. Pathfinder II: A Guide to Pilot Point-Past & Future. Pilot Point: Pilot Point Chamber of Commerce, 2001; The Dallas Express (Dallas, Tex.), Vol. 27, No. 35, Ed. 1 Saturday, June 5, 1920, newspaper, June 5, 1920; Dallas, Texas.(texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth278312/m1/9/q=%22St.%20James%22%20%22Pilot%20Point%22: accessed May 5, 2018), Pilot Point Post-Signal (Pilot Point, Texas). Vol. 90. No. 31. Newspaperarchieve.com https://newspaperarchive.com/pilot-point-post-signal-mar-13-1969-p-1/ (accessed May 5, 2018); Post-Signal , Vol. 92, No. 28. Newspaperarchive.com, https://newspaperarchive.com/pilot-point-post-signal-mar-04-1971-p-1/ (accessed May 5, 2018).