Mount Eden (Hickston)
Gonzales County, TX
Status: Located
Year Established: 1876
Council of Governments: GCRPC
Public History: Mt. Eden Community, formerly Hickston, Texas, was populated by freed slaves. The earliest school records from 1876 lists sixty-three black students registered between the two schools in the area. In 1889, the community filed the Mt. Eden Baptist Church deed. The Mt. Eden Baptist Church contributed structure to a growing church and school based black community. The application for the post office was originally filed in January 1898. However, the post office was approved and established in January 1903. Jim Blane’s father was the first post master and Ella May Barnes James was the last post master. Men and women in the community used to stand and talk in front of the mail boxes located in front of the post office and the Mt. Eden church. Across the road from the post office was a community store operated by Horace Brown. Charlie Goode was the owner of the store. There was a store on each end of the church and a BBQ pit at the back. The Mt. Eden church, school, post office, and community store helped this black community grow after slavery and continue into the 20th century.
Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s many families in the community purchased land and began farming and building structures in the community. While there are many notable families who helped build the community in the late 1800s Clara Balridge was given six acers of land by her former slave owner. Clara’s son, Lee Pettit, the biological son of the slave owner, purchased an additional 60 acres through barter of a grey horse. Notably, the previous slave owner, Lee’s father, did not take the horse with him when he left the area. Lee Pettit and Betty Brooks married and passed the 66 acres to their three daughters Iley, Jenny, and Hettie. This land is still owned by descendants of the Pettit family. In 1917, Robert Stockton (1860 – 1941) and his wife Emma Stockton (1857 – 1932) purchased land in Mt. Eden to farm. Boyd James also owned and farmed large amounts of land in Mt. Eden during the early 1900s. These families along with many others worked to develop the area financially through farming, ranching, and the oil business.
Mt. Eden community school has been recorded as far back as 1876. Along with another nearby school, Wesley Chapel, there were a total of sixty-three colored students registered between the two schools. The history of the Mt. Eden Baptist Church states that Siles Henry and Miss Dilly Walker were two of the early teachers. In 1956 the school board and Superintendent John C. Tumlinson, voted to have the Mt. Eden school building, consisting of three rooms, moved to Waelder and placed on the Waelder colored school campus (later named Ralph Bunche). At the close of the school in 1966 the elementary grades (K – 4) were housed in the Mt. Eden building on the southwest side of Ralph Bunch. After the school closed, the original Mt. Eden building was transported back to the Mt. Eden community.
Prior to 1876, the Mt. Eden Church building was a brush arbor building. By 1876 the church building consisted of a main sanctuary, a pastor’s study and a choir room. There were also two outhouses behind the church, one for the men and one for the women. In the 1960s, the front portion of the sanctuary was turned into a men’s and a women’s restroom. Genevieve Vollentine wrote a piece for The Gonzales County Historical Commission entitled “The Hickston and Mt. Eden Community”. According to that article “The Mt. Eden Baptist Church celebrated its 100th anniversary in 1983. The earliest deed records listed two acres of land deeded by J.E. Halliburton to a committee and the deacons of the “Mt. Eden Colored Church” February 28, 1889.” The names of the people on the committee were not listed but the deacons were: Ben F. Green, W. J. Alexander, Jeff Mitchell, Henry Reed and John Reed. The church history related that it was organized by the Reverend Boyd James and members John Lee, W. J. Alexander, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Blair, Mary Darden, Mr. and Mrs. George McCain and Lovernia Witson from the St. James Baptist Church.”
In 1960, the Mt. Eden church began having a home coming event every summer along with their yearly anniversary events. The Mt. Eden church home coming allows people who have moved away to come back to Mt. Eden and help raise money for the upkeep of the cemetery and the church. Unfortunately, the Mt. Eden community began to decline in population during the late 1900s as more and more young community members left to attend college and move to larger cities.
Community History: Hickston does not have a significant record on early history. It was settled by former slaves from Gonzales County and nearby Lavaca County. A post office was established in 1898 for the community but that is the extent of organized local government. Allegedly the building that was used as the post office at some point before its closing in 1921 is still standing near the roadside on FM 2814, just beyond Mt. Eden Church. Some of the early families to settle Hickston are the Pettit, Green, James, Stockton, Mitchell, Steen, Reed, Nedio and Greenwood families. The vast majority of the community was land that was owned by former slaves and their descendants. Some acquired the land from their former slave owners, bought the land outright in the years after their emancipation or received their land as a form of inheritance. My great-great grandmother Mattie Greenwood (nee Webb or Mueller) received over two hundred acres of land from her father James Mueller who was a white man. This land she would rent out to sharecroppers, some of whom were family members or members of the community. A decent amount of land is still owned by the descendants of the early families that lived in Hickston from its founding and into the early 20th century. The land was suitable for farming (mostly cotton) for many years up until the 1930’s or 1940’s. It was also common practice for members of the community to grow several grows of food crops to feed their families and assist any neighbors or relatives who might have been in need. According to my grandfather Ernest Greenwood, they did not know much about crop rotation during that time and the land was then only good for ranching. The Mt. Eden Church was the epicenter of the community and is still used as an active place of worship today, holding services once a month, along with a homecoming service every June where members and descendants gather for worship and fellowship. Many men were called to preach at the church including my great grandfather Thomas Greenwood and grand uncle Van Lee Greenwood. There was also a school that educated the children of the community that was located across the road from the church. The school building is no longer standing along with a general store that was torn down some years ago. The lack of suitable land for farming along with the complete lack of jobs led to an eventual decline in the community. The cemetery also remains from it’s founding in 1889 and still interns burials to this present day. It is regularly maintained and is well kept considering it’s age. An additional acre or so was donated to the church and cemetery association over 10 years ago to be used an expansion of the cemetery grounds. This land has been cleared but no internments have taken place. The church does have a record of burial plots in the cemetery, possibly for those that do not contain a headstone as well.
Cemetery: Mount Eden Church Cemetery