Mantua

Duane's take

The official marker for Mantua, up in Collin County, is the story I'm about to tell you, so let's get into it. February 23, 1854. Four men.

William C. McKinney, James W. Throckmorton, John A.

Throckmorton, and Joseph Wilcox, set aside twenty-five acres and decided they were going to build something worth building. Not just a town. A town built around a school.

They called it Mantua, and the whole idea was to make it the home of Mantua Seminary. Now, the way they meant to fund that seminary was clever. They platted the town, forty-eight city blocks surrounding a town square, and the proceeds from selling those lots would go straight toward the school.

But here's the part that tells you something about the character of the men behind it: the deeds for those town lots came with conditions. No gambling. No horse racing.

No prostitution. No sale of alcohol. They weren't just building a town; they were engineering an environment.

They had a school in mind, and they intended to protect it. The community took root. In 1857, Mantua Lodge No. 209 of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons organized, and in the early days the Masons met on the second story of Walcott's store.

A post office came in 1858, with E.B. Rollins appointed as the first postmaster. And on October 21 of that same year, McKinney, James W.

Throckmorton, and Wilcox gathered with Mantua citizens to establish the rules for their co-educational seminary. They put up a building just outside of town, shared space, practical as Texans tend to be, for both the seminary and the Masonic lodge. Classes first met in 1860.

By 1868, eighty pupils were enrolled. The town even had congregations putting down roots. Liberty Christian Church had been established as far back as 1846, and a Methodist congregation formed the very next year.

Mantua had a square, a school, a lodge, two churches, a post office. It had all the bones of something lasting. And then came the railroad.

In 1872, the Houston and Texas Central Railroad laid its tracks, approximately one and a half miles east of Mantua. Just east enough. Along those tracks, a new town was formed: Van Alstyne.

And almost immediately, the residents and businesses of Mantua began to relocate. You don't argue with a railroad in 1872. The post office closed in 1873.

The seminary held on a while longer, but it held its last classes in the early 1880s. The churches relocated to neighboring towns. All that careful planning, those forty-eight blocks, those deed restrictions, those eighty pupils, gone.

Mantua didn't burn down, didn't flood away. It just quietly followed the tracks and disappeared. Today, only two things remain to mark where it stood: Mantua Cemetery and Mantua Road.

A cemetery and a road. One holds the people who never left. The other just points toward where they went.

What the marker says

On Februrary 23, 1854, William C. McKinney, James W. Throckmorton, John A. Throckmorton, and Joseph Wilcox set aside twenty-five acres for the town of Mantua, which was conceived as a site for Mantua Seminary. Proceeds from the sale of town lots provided funds for the school. The town plat consisted of forty-eight city blocks surrounding a town square. To help ensure a proper environment for the school, deeds for town lots prohibited gambling, horse racing, prostitution and the sale of alcohol. Mantua Lodge No. 209 A.F. & A.M. organized in 1857, and the Masons first met on the second story of Walcott's store. A post office was established in Mantua in 1858, and E.B. Rollins was appointed as the first postmaster. On October 21, 1858, McKinney, James W. Throckmorton and Wilcox met with Mantua citizens to establish rules for the co-educational Mantua Seminary, and a building was constructed just outside of town for the use of the seminary and the Masonic lodge. Classes were first held in 1860 and by 1868, eighty pupils were enrolled. Liberty Christian Church was established in 1846 and Methodist congregation was formed the next year. In 1872 the Houston and Texas Central Railroad laid tracks approximately 1.5 miles east of Mantua, and the new town of Van Alstyne was formed along the tracks. Almost immediately, the residents and businesses of Mantua relocated to the new town. Mantua's post office was closed in 1873, the Mantua Seminary last held classes during the early 1880s and the churches relocated to neighboring towns. Today, only Mantua Cemetery and Mantua Road remain as symbols of the vanished community. 175 Years of Texas Independence * 1836-2011