Early Fayette County History: 

The Gift of the Shropshires

St. James’ Episcopal Church and the Record have recently published a book on the role in the history of our county of the iconic church. There follows an excerpt from the book. It tells the story of distinguished members who were instrumental in building the church.

Perhaps the most influential family in the St. James’ story would be the Shropshires, Benjamin and Georgiana and their children. They came to Fayette County from Kentucky in 1852 so Ben could open a law practice. Soon afterwards the Shropshires joined the St. James’ congregation, perhaps being present for the county’s first Episcopal baptism, that of Mrs. Julia Lee Sinks, her children, et al. in May of that year. (The Centennial Committee of La Grange in 1876 asked Julia Sinks to record her early reminiscences of Fayette County. Her resulting Chronicles of Fayette would not be published until 100 years later, to prepare for the Bicentennial celebration.)

Apparently, the Shropshires thought well of their new home, for Ben’s brother Samuel would follow two years after Ben’s relocation, settling in Colorado County on a 750-acre plantation with his 61 slaves. Although Samuel Shropshire was a slave owner, he opposed Texas seceding from the union. When secession won the day, Samuel acquiesced, eventually becoming a Confederate major in the Fifth Texas Cavalry.

He was to lose his life in battle at Glorieta Pass in New Mexico in the Spring of 1862, taking a bullet in the head, fired by Union Private George W. Pierce. Apparently too tall to fit in a standard casket, Shropshire was wrapped in blankets and buried at the battlefield. His remains would be found 165 years later and returned to his native Kentucky where he was interred with military honors.

Only three years after settling in Fayette County, Ben Shropshire became the first editor of a newspaper, the True Issue. This paper had morphed from an earlier one, the Monument, led by two other active St. James’ members, Col. J.W.S. Dancy and Lancelot Abbotts. Under Shropshire’s editorship, the paper adopted a recurring theme of excoriat-ing the German settlers in the area.

Unlike his brother––and his father-in-law Livingston Lindsay––Ben was an avid secessionist and Confederate. He formed a company within the Texas Militia he dubbed the “Rough and Ready Rebels.”

In 1865, True Issue announced the defeat of the South and closed shop. Ben would be appointed District Judge, but Reconstruction sentiments were not friendly to secessionist sympathizers. He was removed from office in early 1867.

Benjamin Shropshire died in the Yellow Fever Epidemic that decimated Fayette County in that year. This was also the year his widow donated a city lot meant for a future physical church building, a lot adjacent to the lot upon which St. James’ now stands.

The great flood of 1869 stopped most of the progress church members had en-visioned. But it didn’t stop Georgiana from traveling to New York fundraising for the church. With the $800 (equivalent to over $15,000 in the 2020s) she raised, the parishioners were able to buy the Old Academy Building four years after her trip. The St. James’ Chapel was located upstairs, the school––where Georgiana would teach until her death in 1877––downstairs.

Her father, Judge Lindsay, was a vestry member, as was Peter Faison when, in 1884, Ben and Georgiana’s heirs switched the corner lot at Travis and Monroe deeded to the church, to the one at Monroe and Colorado. In a year’s time, the Old Academy Building was sold for a loss ($650) and the building of the present church began. This year, 1885, the German cargo ship the City of Berlin hit an iceberg off the coast of Newfoundland and was damaged. However, a memorial window called “Faith” riding in her hold was not damaged, nor were her companion windows. The window was commissioned by the Shropshire heirs and is the central memorial window in the south transept of the sanctuary.

It would be difficult to overestimate the tremendous impact Benjamin and Georgiana Shropshire and their heirs had on the birth and growth of St. James’ Episcopal Church of La Grange.

Copies of the book are available via a $20 donation. Contact Cathy Sterman at (979) 968-3910 or Jim Austin at austinjw33@hotmail.com.