The town of Ames, Texas, just east of Liberty Texas, had been established just after the US Civil War and was a rail stop on the Texas and New Orleans Railroad between Beaumont and Houston. In 1890 Black and Creole settlers from St Mary’s Parish Louisiana led by Sylvester Sostan Wickliff moved to Ames. They joined the existing rice-farming community in Ames and established a Catholic Church there in 1897 that has become Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Church.