Webberville Ebenezer Baptist Church grew out of a community whose origins lay in John F. Webber’s 1839 settlement in this sparsely populated area of Texas with his African American wife and children as they sought refuge from racism in towns and cities. A community called Webber Prairie, made up of plantation owners and their slaves, developed here, but racial prejudice led Webber to sell his land to Colonel John Banks in 1851 and move his family to Mexico. In 1868, Matthew Duty donated one acre of land to build a church for the area’s recently emancipated African Americans, and that year the congregation was organized as a mission of the St. John Regular Missionary Baptist Association. Its charter members included Thomas Reads, Suns Johnson, Lowens Berry, and Mary Green, and the Rev. Wesley Barrow served as its first pastor. In 1956, several members left to form a church in Austin that became the New Light Ebenezer Baptist Church. Despite many Webberville families relocating to nearby urban centers, the church remains active, and former members still gather there on special occasions and holidays.