If you have visited San Antonio, Texas, you may have noticed signs for McCullough Avenue. You might suspect that the streets are named for Texas generals Benjamin and Henry Eustace McCulloch. However, the street was named for Rev. John McCullough, born 1805 in Chester County, Pennsylvania, a descendant of Ulster Scots. He was a Texas pioneer and first protestant minister in San Antonio. At that time, starting a church in Texas was considered “foreign missions.” According to William Wallace McCullough, Jr.:
“He began work in 1846 with a day school for Mexican children and the organization of the First Presbyterian Church. Though he was an ardent abolitionist in Pennsylvania, he came to accept Southern culture and the slaves of his wife’s family, but he continued to preach for black congregations. Working against almost impossible difficulties and surviving attempts by desperados to assassinate him, he continued his efforts in San Antonio until after the death of his wife in 1849, when he returned to Galveston.”