SITE DIRECTORY

To learn more about any of the BCN sites listed below, click “Read more” to view individual site briefs. To search for a specific BCN site, use the search bar below:

 
TX Sarajane Smith TX Sarajane Smith

Terryville Community Cemetery

Terryville Community Cemetery

FOUNDED: 1845

ADDITIONAL NAMES: N/A

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY: At the end of the Civil War, the plantation owners in Gonzales County wanted their former slaves to vacate the plantation lands. The ex-slaves didn’t want to leave because they had nowhere to go, so, the plantation owners got together and gave the now freed slaves a five acre long stretch of land and evicted them from the plantations to this five acre stretch which included the ‘burying ground’, now the Terryville Community Cemetery, for slaves dying on the plantations over the years. Those five acres became the center of what was known as the "Terryville Community". The Terryville Community was a thriving self-contained Black community. The surrounding Black owned farms used the central hub of the community to socialize, express their religious freedom and trade communities among themselves.

BCN Contact Information:

James Kirkwood

jameskirkwood2644@gmail.com

Read More