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Texas
| Columns | Bob
Bowman's East Texas
A Forgotten
Town:
Angelina County’s Philistine
Philistine stood
near remote Grimes Cemetery, a small graveyard about four and half
miles south of the Beulah community on Farm Road 1818. Its beginning
can be traced to the late 1890s or early 1900s.
by Bob Bowman |
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Deep
in the woods of southeastern Angelina
County, a few miles from the brown-watered Neches
River, the settlement of Philistine lies in eternal slumber.
Little has been written about the old community; the morsels of information
available have come from word of mouth passed along from generation
to generation.
The name comes from the Bible and the people of Angelina
County’s Philistine apparently shaped their lives in the fashion
of families from Biblical days.
The Philisitines from the Bible, however, were inveterate enemies
of the Israelites who fought against Samson, David and other Biblical
heroes. In modern usage, the term Philistine refers to crass, priggish
individuals--a description that did not fit Angelina
County’s Philistines.
The late Corine Squyres lived in Philistine when she was eleven. She
remembered her father reading the Bible and referring to Philistine.
Asking where Philistine was located, Corine was told by her mother
that it stood in the Holy Land. As she grew up, Corine often remarked
that she, too, lived in a Holy Land. |
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Grimes
Cemetery’s homcoming shed is one of the few landmarks left of Philistine.
Photo courtesy Bob Bowman |
Philistine
stood near remote Grimes Cemetery, a small graveyard about four and
half miles south of the Beulah community on Farm Road 1818. Its beginning
can be traced to the late 1890s or early 1900s.
Philistine’s families were primarily cattlemen and farmers. Because
of the distance from large communities, they depended on what they
grew or made with their own hands.
Philistine likely had few of the amenities that made up larger communities.
It probably had at least one store, perhaps a small church since the
community was religious, and a school also known as Grimes. Later,
the community’s children went to Beulah’s school.
Grimes Cemetery became the final resting place for old Philistine
residents and, even today, many of their descendants return to bury
their family members in the earth on a slight rise in the forest.
As Angelina County
evolved from an agricultural area to a timbering region, Philistine
changed. Its men found jobs cutting and hauling timber and, as communities
evolved in places like Diboll,
Huntington and
Zavalla, the families
of Philistine moved.
In 2009, there was little physical evidence of old Philistine in the
Neches River bottomlands, except for a homecoming shed and a few scattered
homes.
Bob Bowman's East Texas
April 20, 2009 Column.
A
weekly column syndicated in 109 East Texas newspapers
Copyright Bob Bowman |
| Texas
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