Ronnie and Donnie Lappe
Special to the Bulletin
The Lee Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church observed its one hundredth anniversary in June 1988. It is located at 913 Beaver Street. The name of the Lee Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church came from both its denomination and one of the denomination’s early bishops.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church started in a meeting, in November 1787, of the African American people belonging to the Methodist Society in Philadelphia. In 1793, with the support of others in the group, Richard Allen constructed, at his own expense and on his own property, a house of worship which became known as the African Methodist Meeting House. This was the Bethel Church at 6th and Lombard Streets in Philadelphia. It was the first Methodist chapel built for the exclusive use of African Americans.
February is Black History Month. Brownwoodnews.com will run a series of articles this month about some of the early Black leaders in Brown County. This is the first in the series.
Rev. George E. Smith was one of the first Blacks to move to Brown County, and was the founder of the first school for blacks here, later to be known as the Hardin School.
Smith was born a slave in Virginia, circa 1847. In 1861, with his grandmother’s help, he escaped and ran away to Washington, D.C. The Civil War having just begun, he was considered “contraband” by Union troops, and was forced to dig trenches around the city to protect it from the Confederate armies. In 1869, after the Civil War, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, Company C, 9th Cavalry, in Washington, D.C. He was sent to Texas and served at Fort Concho and Fort Davis. From these forts he participated in campaigns against Apache Indians in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. In 1874, upon the expiration of his enlistment, S