St. Philip's Episcopal Church - Hearne, TX
N 30° 52.721 W 096° 35.742
14R E 729851 N 3418632
St. Philip's Episcopal Church is at 408 Cedar St, Hearne, TX.
Waymark Code: WM15WEJ
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 03/08/2022
Views: 1
The sanctuary is a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, and a 1979 Texas Historical Marker at the entrance provides some background. As the lack of an apostrophe on the marker suggests, it should be "St. Philips", but they are clearly "St. Philip's" today:
W.B. Wadsworth (1843-1916) and J.G. Wilkerson (1847-1903) moved their families to the Hearne area from Matagorda. With their help, this church was founded in 1871. It was named in honor of the Rev. J.W. Philips who preached the first sermon. This property was donated to the congregation by the New York and Texas Land Company. Services were conducted in a wooden church building until the present Gothic Revival structure was completed in 1912.
Besides a nice website (see below), the church has an active presence on Facebook. There's no sign out front, but there are photos of it in a November 12, 2021 post where the church got a facelift, so it may have been a casualty then or soon after. They also have a community garden behind the church, and there is a "red box in front of the church with the red door" -- a "sidewalk pantry" -- that they installed in January 2019 (see photos on January 13 and 30).