Shelby County Texas

The first pioneers came to the Tennessee Community in 1836.  The community is located in North Shelby County, five miles west of Tenaha and seven miles east of Timpson, on Farm FM 947.   The community was known as Mt. Carmel until about 1877.  Because so many settlers came from the State of Tennessee, they changed the name.  The land was cleared for farming and the families built their homes.  The houses were made of logs with stick and dirt chimneys.  There were some other homes which were made from lumber, but they continued to build the chimneys with stick and dirt.   Farming was the only enterprise, but there were very few farm implements.   Plows were about the only tools except for the hoes and axes.  The people planted gardens for their food supplies with potatoes, peanuts, corn and cotton for a money crop.  They canned dried fruit and stored potatoes, corn and ham was kept in a smokehouse.  The corn was shucked and taken to the mill to be ground for the bread.   Cows supplied the milk and butter.  The main items to be purchased were sugar, coffee, soda, salt and black pepper.  In most cases the the farm was self supporting.   About 20% of the land was in cultivation and the rest was of forest and short needle pine.  The creek and river supplied fish and river bottoms were heavily timbered with large hard wood trees, such as live oak.

    The pioneers, being very religious persons, probably met each Sunday in someone home for fellowship and worship service.  The The first frame Church building which was constructed in 1877 and served as an all-denomination church and school.  About 1913 the Methodist and Presbyterian congregations built separate churches. During 1950's both churches were torn down and replaced with brick buildings.

    In the early 1920's Highway 59 came through Bobo which is two miles south of Tennessee.  A group of farmers went to Center, the county seat, to lobby for this road to come through Tennessee from Timpson to Tenaha, but to no avail.   It was after World War II that the old dirt road (FM 947) was paved which now runs through the community.

    Today the Tennessee Cemetery serves the two active community churches, and many individuals who once lived here and moved away elect to be brought back and buried in the Tennessee Cemetery.   The oldest engraved stone marker show the date of death as 1828, and there are now over 900 graves in the cemetery.

Note:  The above history was edited from text in the Shelby County Texas History Book, published in 1988, from the writings Betty Yarberry Crawford McDonald and Ruby Lane.

BACK