Terryville

Duane's take

The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one passing it along. Out here in DeWitt County, there's a story hiding in two different spots of ground, and it starts with a name. Terryville.

Founded near this very site sometime in the eighteen fifties, the community took its name from the family of James D. Terry, a man who would go on to serve as De Witt County judge from eighteen eighty three to eighteen ninety one. The town came first, the judge's tenure came later, but the name tied them together all the same.

Now, Terryville wasn't a quiet little place sitting on its hands. When the Civil War came calling, this community raised a cavalry company for the Confederate Army. That's not nothing.

That's neighbors and sons and fathers saddling up together. And civilian life kept moving too. By eighteen sixty nine, Terryville had itself a post office, which in those days was about as official as a town could get.

But here's where the story takes a turn. Come the eighteen eighties, the post office packed up, and most of the residents went right along with it, relocating to a new spot two and a half miles away. Two and a half miles doesn't sound like much on a map, but when a whole community picks up and walks, it means something shifted.

The town prospered at that second location, carried on through the years, all the way into the early twentieth century. Then the post office was discontinued in nineteen oh seven, and that quiet kind of ending settled over the place. What's left?

Well, that's the part worth sitting with. Back at the first townsite, the old cemetery remains. The dead, as they tend to do, stayed put.

And out at the second location, a Baptist church still stands. Two pieces of a community, two and a half miles apart, each one keeping its own kind of memory. Terryville didn't vanish so much as it spread itself across the land and let the land hold it.

What the marker says

Founded near this site in the 1850s, Terryville was named for the family of James D. Terry, who served as De Witt County judge from 1883 to 1891. The community raised a cavalry company for the Confederate Army and had a post office by 1869. The post office and most residents moved in the 1880s to a new location 2.5 miles away. The community prospered until the early 20th century. The post office was discontinued in 1907. The old cemetery remains at the first townsite, while a Baptist church still exists at the second location. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986