Starks Chapel
Pilot Grove, Texas
33.41446   96.42496
Located "Off Road" behind a grove of trees

Toy Stinnett came as a boy to Pilot Grove with the Stinnett family in the 1850s. After the Civil War, Toy and his wife, Mary, had 200 acres and built a house south of Pilot Grove near the hills overlooking the creek. Toy’s grandson, O.S. Stinnett who lived across from Starks Chapel, related some of the history of this close knit Black community.

The original frame Starks Chapel served the Methodist faith. A Baptist church was located just to the north on Conner Creek but was washed out in a flood along with the bridge and neither was replaced.  The two story school house adjacent to Starks Chapel was known as Marchman #128 and the Masonic Lodge met on the second floor. The school went through the eighth grade enrolling as many as 100 students.

Mr. Stinnett remembered the reunions held around the school and chapel. “People would come from miles around and stay with our families for a week. There would be speeches and lots to eat. We would fry buffalo fish in big wash pots and that’s how we made money for the school.”

Descendents of Stinnett families and others of the area are buried in Luper Cemetery. Starks Chapel burned on July 4th in the early 1990s.  A few vacant homes are all that is left.

Vanished School

Churches
Susan Hawkins
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