Primrose-Sexton Community
Van, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Thomas Horsley received much of the land in this area from the state of Texas in 1847, and settlers began to arrive in the 1850s. Johnson Watts and his family came in 1858 and bought 820 acres of Horsley land. B. H. Denson, his family and 30 slaves moved to the area in 1859 and bought 1,890 acres. The Sexton community developed on the Denson and adjoining Watts land. By 1866, when Denson sold land to John M. Williams, the deed excluded three acres for "Shilo Meeting House," believed to have been the area's first church and school. In the 1880s, Littleton Davidson and his family built a cotton gin, attracting more settlers. The one-room log New Harmony Church-School building east of Shilo Meeting House was in operation by 1880. It was east of and across the road from the cemetery. The first grave in the New Harmony Cemetery was that of James A. Fulgham, who died at age two in 1880. The New Harmony school closed in the late 1890s. Fern and Ann Williams and Al Sexton conveyed two acres for the Sexton community school in 1899. The school grew rapidly. A federal post office was established in 1902 in Davidson's store under the name "Primrose," so residents called the community both Primrose and Sexton. J. D. Johns and his wife conveyed two acres for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1904, establishing the Sexton Chapel Church. The post office closed in 1910. In 1912 Al Sexton formally deeded two acres for the cemetery. A larger schoolhouse was built in 1914. It served the community until consolidation with the Van Independent School District in 1938. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Land granted to Thomas Horsley in 1847 drew settlers through the 1850s, among them Johnson Watts and the planter B. H. Denson, who arrived in 1859 with his family and thirty enslaved people and bought nearly 1,900 acres. The community coalesced around the "Shilo Meeting House," reserved by deed in 1866, and grew with cotton gins, the New Harmony and Sexton schools, and Methodist congregations. A post office opened in 1902 under the name Primrose, so the place answered to both names until schools consolidated with Van in 1938.
Why it matters
The record of Denson's thirty enslaved laborers alongside the churches, schools, and cotton gins is a candid reminder that the antebellum cotton frontier of East Texas was built on slavery.
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Related people
- · Thomas Horsley
- · Johnson Watts
- · B. H. Denson
- · Al Sexton
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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