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History
in a Pecan Shell
In the 1850s several families from Georgia moved into the area and
cleared a tree-covered hill and built a church. It didn’t take them
long to come up with a name.
Plantations were established and Dr. Prior of Virginia is credited
with building the first brick house in Rusk
County. A post office was granted in 1893, but discontinued eleven
years later when mail was rerouted through Henderson.
In 1895 the town had thirty people, a Methodist (not a Presbyterian)
church and a store. From the thirties through the 60s, the town retained
about 30 citizens and then declined to fifteen where it stood in 1990.
The School at Church Hill
The Church Hill Male and Female Academy, later called the Church Hill
Academy was established by the Texas Legislature in February of 1854.
Local residents John C. Robertson, Samuel Watson and John Strong (the
towns first postmaster) donated the land for the school.
A cemetery named Strong is found nearby Church Hill on TxDoT’s Rusk
County map.
Those three men along with Jackson Pryor, Anderson W. Smith, Newell
Tullis, and William P. Wright comprised the school’s first Board of
Trustees. Supervised by six Presbyterian ministers, the Academy’s
administrator was John M. Becton.
The school dissolved sometime around the beginning of the Civil War.
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