Elias Dibble (1811-1885) was a Black Methodist minister in Houston before and after the Civil War and one of the men credited with helping to raise money for the purchase of Emancipation Park.

Up through 1865

Enslaved in Houston, Dibble had likely gained experience as an exhorter among the Methodist Church’s Black congregants, who for ten years before the Civil War had their own wooden building on the lot of First Methodist Church at Texas and Milam. That wooden building was briefly rented for a time by the white congregation after its own, larger building collapsed in 1860. By the end of the war, the white congregation was borrowing the Lutheran church for its services, returning the wooden chapel to the use of Dibble’s congregation.¹

According to israel1998, “Several members of the African Mission (Methodist) met with their black pastor Elias Dibble on March 5, 1865, at the home of Richard Brock to organize a church independent from First Methodist’s oversight.” Israel says Dibble traveled to New Orleans in December 1865, was appointed a minister in the Methodist Episcopal Church (North), and then returned with an assignment to minister for the denomination in Houston.²

In October 1865, along with Shade Croome and Peter Jackson as officers and the aid of Rev. W. R. Fayle, he founded a “Mutual Aid Society” in Houston; the Telegraph printed the society’s preamble.³

On the evening of December 17, 1865, the church elected its board of trustees as Peter Noble, Charles Chapman, Frank Vance, Edwin Brooks, Samuel Noble, and John Sessums, recording the vote in the Harris County Deed Books under Elias Dibble’s legal mark on February 15, 1866.⁴

Minister in Houston, 1866-1868

From 1866 City Directory:

The Freedmen’s Methodist church was formerly included among the colored missions of the M. E. Church, South, but, since the war, the congregation has connected itself with the M. E. Church, North. Rev. Elias Dibble, a colored minister, is the present pastor. He has long been known in our city, and enjoys the respect and confidence of our citizens. A Sunday School is likewise connected with this charge.

On February 7, 1866, a deed was recorded in Harris County transferring Block 319 to Dibble and the “Trustees of African Church.” C. C. Speers, in exchange for $1200 “to me paid and to be paid by Elias Dibble preacher in charge and Charles Chatman, John Sessums, Peter Jackson, Peter Noble, Edward Brooks, Frank Vance, & Sam Noble Trustees of the African Methodist Church of Houston.” Mentions that the trustees hold two notes for $300 each to be payable to Speers in six and twelve months respectively in gold, with 10 percent interest.⁵

A sermon given by Dibble on Luke 5:31 was published in the New Orleans Advocate for March 3, 1866, and is available on the Internet Archive.⁶ See also a report on March 31, 1866 about a visit by the Advocate subscription agent to Houston that may mention the same sermon and discusses the church’s organization and purchase of property:

The trustees have filed the certificate of their election, and are thus the second incorporated society among the colored people in Texas. They will now hold and control their own Church property, as, under the new order of things, they are guaranteed the rights of property, and may protect it before the law.⁷

According to newspaper reports, the white Methodist church was taking steps in April 1866 to begin construction of its new building on its lot at Texas and Milam. As a result, “The colored Methodist church is in the process of removal.”⁸ A little more than a week later, the same paper gave more details about how the church was moved:

We notice that the colored Methodist church could not be moved from its old locality without being torn down. The attempt was made to move it on blocks, but it was found too difficult a task, and although it had been removed from its old foundation into the middle of Milam street, there it had to be torn down and carried away by piecemeal, but will, we understand, be rebuilt as soon as practicable. The colored school, we believe, has been temporarily suspended, but will be resumed again as soon as a suitable house can be obtained for it.⁹

By May 28, it was reported that “The colored Methodist church, which was so lately removed from the corner of Milam street and Texas Avenue, has been remodled [sic] on Travis street, and the school formerly kept for the colored people in it, is again in successful operation at its present location.”¹⁰

In the Harris County book of marriages that seems to be devoted to the unions of people of color (which begins in November 1865), Dibble first appears as an officiant on December 31, 1866.¹¹

(I’m not sure what to make of the fact that even in 1867, William Fayle (the minister of the white Methodist church) continued to be listed as the officiant on some marriages of Black Methodists, and even when Elias Dibble signed his mark to one marriage certificate as a “deacon” on March 2, 1867, it was listed as “signed in the presence of Wm. R. Fayle.” But compare another certificate from April 1867 signed only by Dibble.)

On June 14, 1867, Dibble registered to vote (as “E.S. Dibble”) in Houston.¹²

In the Annual Conference minutes for 1868, he is still stationed with the “Houston Circuit” church, along with P. A. Moelling. That year in the New Orleans Advocate, the bishop applauded him as “a true and noble man” in a survey of the “colored preachers in the Texas Conference.”

Minister outside Houston, 1869-1874

At the Texas Conference of the Methodist church held in Austin, January 25-27, 1869, Dibble is now reported as being stationed in Galveston. In 1870, he is still there. His church in Houston now appears to be led by Daniel Gregory.¹³

An article in the Daily Union in April 1869, written by a correspondent from Galveston, also suggests that Elias Dibble was then living and preaching there.¹⁴

This is confirmed by a May 15, 1869, article in the New Orleans Advocate reporting on a quarterly meeting at the Galveston church:

Rev. Elias Dibble was appointed to this church at our last conference, and commenced his labors under some discouragements; but he was received warmly by his brethren, and is doing a good work. Efforts are being made to raise funds sufficient to repair their church, which suffered severely in the great storm of 1867. We think they will succeed.

The 1870 Census, too, found him in Galveston.

The 1871 minutes of the Texas Conference of the Methodist Church suggest that in December 1870, he was moved to a church in Austin. He is listed as a Vice President of a “Grant Re-nomination and Republican Club” in Galveston later in 1871.¹⁵

In the 1872 minutes, he is associated with a church in Harrisburgh and Lynchburgh, while the 1873 minutes show him stationed only in Lynchburgh (with Harrisburgh “to be supplied”).

Finally, in the 1874 minutes, he is listed as a “super-annuated” (retiring) preacher, and is no longer stationed as of the Marshall, Texas, annual meeting held January 7-11, 1874.

I still need to understand whether Dibble maintained residence in Houston as he ministered in Galveston, Austin, and Lynchburgh.

Return (?) to Houston, 1874-1885

He is listed as part of the events for the 1875 Juneteenth in Houston.

Later, in 1879, the trustees of the Black Methodist Church in Houston sued Charles C. Speers in District Court, with Dibble, Vance, and S. M. Williams giving evidence that “they are trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church” and had purchased Block 319 from the defendant, but that “by mistake of the parties the title was taken by the said Trustees in the name of the African Methodist Church” when it was intended to be conveyed to the group as trustees. The purchase money had been paid off in full, and the judge ruled in the plaintiffs favor that the title be corrected and divested out of the African Methodist Church and vested in the trustees. The lien held by Speers is also discharged. Recorded April 9, 1880.¹⁶

In 1885, he was part of a funeral service in Houston honoring the death of Ulysses S. Grant, along with Jack Yates.¹⁷

He died on December 17, 1885.¹⁸ According to the Galveston Daily News, a memorial service in honor of Dibble would follow the next summer—on the Fourth of July.¹⁹