Houston, Harris County
The second Episcopal parish in the Republic of Texas. Led by a missionary of the Episcopal Church in the United States, the Rev. R.M. Chapman, and by an early Houstonian, Col. William Fairfax Gray, thirty-nine men came together on March 16, 1839, to organize an Episcopal Church, and on Easter Monday, April 1, 1839, Christ Church was officially established. Some of the first service were held in the Capitol of the Republic, then at the corner of Main Street and Texas Avenue. In 1844 a wooden building on this site served as a church. In 1846 it was supplanted by a brick structure. In 1859 a second brick church was begun, then enlarged in 1876. Present building was erected in 1893, its altar area rebuilt after a fire in 1938. The original cornerstone may be seen inside the church. Founded under the Rt. Rev. Leonidas Polk, missionary bishop, and often visited by his successor, the Rt. Rev. George Washington Freeman, the parish was guided and nurtured by the Rt. Rev. Alexander Gregg, first bishop of the Diocese of Texas, and by the Rt. Rev. George Herbert Kinsolving, second bishop. It became in 1949 the Cathedral of the Diocese under the Rt. Rev. Clinton s. Quin, third bishop.