Wesley

Wesley is at the intersection of Farm roads 2502 and 332, eight miles southwest of Brenham in southwestern Washington County. In 1859 Josef Maik founded the first Czech school in Texas in the Czech settlement of Veseli near the Austin County border. Veseli, meaning joyous, was later anglicized to Wesley. Rev. Josef Opocensky organized the first Czech Protestant and Moravian Brethren congregation in North America in 1864 at Veseli, which became a supply center by 1866. The Wesley Brethren church, erected in 1886, served as a school between 1866 and 1900 and as a museum by 1989. In 1867 the first Czech reading club in Texas and a post office were established. In 1889 Pastor Bohuslav Emil Lacjak painted designs on the church interior. Wesley was the site of a Czech Brethren state convention in 1893. The population was 318 in 1890, 200 in 1930, and sixty by 1959. The Wesley Brethren Church has been restored and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Wesley also had a new church serving the Brethren congregation, the Brethren cemetery, and several residences in 1988. No commercial establishments remain there. Through 2000 the population was still reported as sixty.