Peyton Colony Lime Kiln
Blanco, Blanco County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Peyton Colony was a freedmen's community established in the 1860s under the leadership of former slave Peyton Roberts. In addition to homes, the community included a local school and Mt. Horeb Baptist Church. This lime kiln was built by Peyton Roberts and his neighbors to provide high quality materials with which to make mortar for buildings in Blanco County, some of which remain today. The kiln was restored in the 1960s in conjunction with the construction of a roadside park at the site. It stands as a reminder of the efforts of ex-slaves to begin new lives. (1988)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the years after emancipation, freedpeople across Texas built their own settlements from the ground up, and Peyton Colony was one of them—founded in the 1860s by formerly enslaved Peyton Roberts and his neighbors in the Blanco County hills. Alongside their homes, a school, and Mt. Horeb Baptist Church, the community fired this lime kiln to make mortar strong enough to raise buildings that still stand today. The kiln's later restoration turned a working piece of frontier industry into a monument to self-reliance.
Why it matters
Freedmen's communities like Peyton Colony show how emancipated Americans claimed land, faith, and enterprise for themselves, laying literal and figurative foundations for the country they helped rebuild.
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Related people
- · Peyton Roberts
Themes & tags
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Peyton Colony (Board House)
Blanco, TX
In 1865 a group of newly freed people led by Peyton Roberts—born into slavery in Virginia and brought to Texas in the 1820s—founded a community of their own here, known to white settlers as Freedman's Colony. The families farmed and built a lime kiln, and life centered on Mt. Horeb Baptist Church, organized in 1874, whose log cabin doubled as a school. A post office, a cemetery on land deeded by Roberts, and generations of descendants sustained the settlement well into the 20th century.
Mt. Horeb Baptist Church
Blanco, TX
Peyton Roberts was born into slavery in Virginia and gained his freedom in Texas as the Civil War ended, then moved west to farm this land in the Hill Country. The Black settlement that grew around him became known as Peyton Colony, and in 1874 its residents, led by the Rev. Jack Burch, founded Mt. Horeb Baptist Church. Their first sanctuary was a log building that doubled as a schoolhouse, a common pairing in freedmen's communities where faith and literacy advanced together.