Patrick Community
Henderson, Rusk County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1854 the Patrick brothers, James Moore (1795-1867), John Thomas Campbell (1814-68), and Minor Leander (b. 1818), led Presbyterian families from South Carolina to Rusk County. John built a six-room log house on the Shreveport-Douglass Road. The brothers' nearby homes formed the hub of this community. Originally called Pleasant Springs, after the Civil War it boasted a church house and school, cotton gin, grist mill, store, and post office. By 1925 businesses closed but the school remained active until World War II. The church is all that remains of the once thriving village.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1854 the three Patrick brothers led Presbyterian families out of South Carolina to settle this corner of Rusk County, first calling it Pleasant Springs. A six-room log house on the Shreveport-Douglass Road anchored a village that grew to hold a church, school, cotton gin, grist mill, store, and post office. The businesses faded by 1925 and the school closed during World War II, leaving only the church to mark where a thriving community once stood.
Why it matters
It traces the full arc of a 19th-century Southern migration settlement — birth, boom, and quiet disappearance — a pattern repeated across the rural South.
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Related people
- · James Moore Patrick
- · John Thomas Campbell Patrick
- · Minor Leander Patrick
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
John T. C. Patrick Home
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John Campbell Patrick came from South Carolina in 1854 with his wife, five children, his brothers, and other families, and in 1855 bought 335 acres on the Shreveport Road. The log house he built became the heart of the Patrick Community, drawing a gin, grist mill, schoolhouse, and church around it. His widowed daughter Mary Bolding later ran a store, post office, and telephone switchboard from the family home until her death just before World War I.
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