The necessary equipment for a circuit rider was quite meager—a good horse and a pair of roomy saddle wallets containing primarily his Bible and Hymn Book. And the requisite qualities for the preacher himself were also few, but needful—a good constitution (most of them were young men), able to endure hardships as a soldier of his Master; a gift of song, a fair stock of common sense; and a large measure of zeal for his Master’s cause. These men went to a new land, a land of strangers, with the love of God and man in their hearts.

The Rev. John S. McGee, mentioned above, suffered a great heartache while in this area. One version says that about the year 1855, the young son of Mr. McGee and another man were out looking for livestock, on horseback, when Indians attacked them. Young McGee’s mule could not run as fast as the horse and he was captured and scalped. This was a hard blow to the McGee family and in later years they moved back to Kentucky.

In 1858, a new schoolhouse-Masonic Lodge building was completed at Bethseda (later known as Concrete, near La Vernia.) Here the Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians were privileged to hold alternating religious services. Church reports for that year include this item:

"W. T. Thornberry, Lavernia Circuit, 40 conversions and 31 accessions." A fruitful harvest for the Methodists, evidently! Around the turn of the century, at Bethesda they were still holding Methodist Sunday School and occasional preaching in the school house because for many people it was too far to go to La Vernia where the church was built.

In those days families traveled by horse and buggy or mules and wagon or horseback, and in the summer they would hold arbor revival meetings for several days or longer. The arbor was built of poles with leafy brush for the roof, under which the people sat on benches moved out of the schoolhouse or on chairs brought with them. The preacher used a small table for his pulpit, and coal oil lanterns were hung under the arbor for light. A typical family, such as the Richard Wells, Sr. family, who lived near New Berlin, traveled to these meetings by wagon. Mother Wells would spread quilts in the back of the wagon and as the smaller children got sleepy during the meetings they would be put on the quilts to go to sleep. This was a time of good preaching, soul searching, fellowship and fun. Some of the other families living in the area and coming to these meetings were the Sculls, Richardsons, Warrens, Conners, Maddox’s, Hibdons, and others.

In 1871, the Masons completed their new rock lodge building in La Vernia where school and religious services were also held (Brahan Masonic Lodge # 226) Local tradition says that, since the Methodists continued holding their services in this building until erecting their own church building, the La Vernia Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was organized there also. In 1876 the Presbyterians built their first church house about two miles east of La Vernia.

Longing for a place of their own to worship, the Methodists took the first step by organizing "The La Vernia Methodist Methodist Episcopal Church, South" of the West Texas Annual Conference, in 1876. Earliest records of the organized congregation show as the first pastor the Rev. John E. Vernor, son of the Rev. James E. Vernor who, with his family, moved to Texas in the fall of 1869, from Jackson County, Alabama, and settled in Gonzales County, in the Leesville area near Nixon. John Vernor was born in 1851, taught school at Union Valley in 1872, entered the Methodist ministry in 1873, and was elected to elder’s orders in 1876, at the 18^th session of the West Texas Annual Conference in Seguin, which began on October 25, 1876.

About the first pastor, a granddaughter of the Rev. John Vernor said, "I do know that my grandfather came to Texas shortly after the Civil War and served several large circuits in that area. One of his favorite stories was that Indians scalped a man in the bounds of his first circuit. Grandpa rode horseback, with saddlebags, of course, and was away from home some days at a time. One winter, after a spell of pneumonia, his voice became husky for much of the cold weather and he "located," but after that, published a newspaper weekly, or later daily, the Lampasas Daily Leader." (A niece, Mrs. Linnie Key of Nixon, Texas, confirms this and sets the date of moving to Lampasas as 1919.) Presently, a Vernor great-grandson, John Walter Cason, is also a Methodist minister who served as a missionary in Liberia and is now teaching Christian Missions at Garrett Theological Seminary.

For the conference years of 1877-78 and ’79-80, there is no known record of who served our church as pastor. It could have been someone from the Floresville, Sutherland Springs, Concrete or Cibolo Circuits. Apparently, however, Rev. J. B. Dibrell of Floresville served our church for the year 1878-79.

On April 7, 1881, the trustees, N. M. Newton, W. B. Newton, H. N. Graves, R. Kingdon and T. P. Camp, led the congregation in buying 973/1000ths of an acre of land from Mrs. G. H. McMahon for $50.00, along with one-half acre of land from Mrs. E. S. Leach for $12.50, on which to build their own church house. Rev. W. T. Thornberry, of the Cibolo Circuit, was "supplying" La Vernia at the time. The Rev. H. S. Thrall reports in his "A Brief History of Methodism in Texas" (1894), "And in 1881 a neat frame church was dedicated at La Vernia by J. B. Dibrell, a former pastor," apparently on October 9^th. Rejoicing may be seen in the beautiful handwriting of the new (now the oldest!) Sunday School Record Book which includes these words, "Organization of Asbury Chapel Sunday School at La Vernia, Oct. 9^th, 1881."

La Vernia church’s first resident pastor apparently was the Rev. F. A. Knox who was appointed by the 1883 West Texas Annual Conference to head the "La Vernia Circuit," so listed for the first time. Mr. Knox, like a number of our pastors was also active in the local Masonic lodge.

"On August 20, 1886, the town of La Vernia was considerably demolished by a tropical storm from the Gulf of Mexico consisting of high winds, lots of hail and driving rain. The cotton and corn crops were almost completely destroyed in some parts of the country. Many outbuildings in town and many farm buildings were unroofed or destroyed"—so reports a "History of the Town of La Vernia" by the Civil Government Class of La Vernia High School, 1936-37. The new Methodist Church, just built in 1881, also was destroyed. You can imagine what heartache this storm must have caused! But the Methodists did not grieve long. They quickly got busy and went to work rebuilding it on the same spot. What faith! The new church was finished in early 1887 and is the same building we are worshipping in today in 1976. This makes the present building 90 years old—still sturdy, beautiful and reverent. Other churches that this writer knows of that were wrecked or destroyed in the 1886 storm were the Floresville and Fairview Methodist churches and the Elm Creek Lutheran church.

Homer S. Thrall writes about mighty revivals being held in the area, including at La Vernia. La Vernia took in 70 new members during a four year period around 1888. At the end of 1901, the "Annual Summary of Members" shows a net membership of 85.

Beginning with 1902, we have our first available Quarterly Conference records, and it seems that at this time the oldest available church membership record was worked up from available sources at that time. The La Vernia circuit shows: 154 members, two houses of worship, one parsonage, paid Preacher-in-charge $430.35, total amount raised for all objects during the year, $990.75. Charges listed on this circuit are La Vernia, Sandy Elm Church, Campbell School House (later known as Parita Church) and Adkins. Sandy Elm is seen for the last time on this circuit in 1918. In 1905, Sutherland Springs and Elmendorf are also on this circuit and continue on through the years. During 1907-08, Saspamco also had a preaching place on this circuit. Elmendorf and Parita do not appear on the circuit listings in some of the years following, and 1940 is the last time we see Elmendorf listed.

In early years the La Vernia churches did not have services every Sunday in every church. For many years they followed this pattern: the Presbyterians had worship services the first Sunday of the month; the Baptists the third Sunday; the Methodists the second and fourth Sundays. Some families attended each other’s services every Sunday. The Methodists held Sunday School every Sunday. Wednesday night prayer services also were a part of the regular program.

Around 1914 a new parsonage was built to replace the old one. It was a four-room building, almost square shaped, with a four-sided roof coming to a tip in the center. This home was lived in until about 1965, when it was sold and moved away. In 1926, a new roof was put on the church, the yard fence rearranged and the Board of Stewards set $1000.00 as the amount for support of the Preacher-in-charge.

Hard times came with the Depression of the 1930s, but the people were resourceful and worked hard and knew how to make a little money and material go a long way. They were also spiritually forward looking. During 1939-1940, the parsonage was re-roofed and the interior repapered since there had not been a resident pastor for awhile when Rev. Ross Welch came in 1938. A well was dug and a pressure pump put on it. Before this, there was only an above-ground rainwater cistern. Concrete steps were built for both church and parsonage to replace the old wooden ones. The membership at this time was around 64. 1939 was a year of "drought and sickness, but every church was doing work of which to be proud," said one report. On June 11, 1939, the La Vernia church observed a homecoming Sunday which included "an informal afternoon program that almost turned into a revival meeting." This was the occasion for Mrs. Edgar Currie’s history of the La Vernia church.

From 1943 to 1947, La Vernia was served by the Stockdale resident pastor, along with Caddo, Sunnyside and Sutherland Springs. In 1949 we again had a resident pastor who also served Sutherland Springs until 1966 when Parita was exchanged as the other preaching place, this arrangement lasting until 1974, when La Vernia was put on a circuit with Stockdale again, the pastor living in Stockdale, readily available. In 1968 the Methodist and Evangelical Brethren denominations became the United Methodists and on January 11, 1970, the La Vernia and Post Oak (E. U. B.) churches merged, with the Rev. Cole Smith as supervising pastor. The Post Oak property was sold and the cemetery placed in the care of the La Vernia church.

With the closing of the Post Oak church building, the members voted that the following sacred items be given to the La Vernia United Methodist church: the pulpit, lectern, communion table, altar railing, two high-backed chairs, the "Christ in Gethsemane" and "The Lord’s Supper"

pictures and the lovely antique silver pitcher, plate and two chalices which belong to the communion set. A story about this communion set says that long ago Friedrich Ploeger (1856-1910) was plowing (or grubbing) when he found some buried money. He used part of this money to buy this lovely antique silver communion set in gratitude to God. Post Oak’s piano was donated to the Parita United Methodist Church.