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Settlements began to develop in Jones County by the mid-1800s, first around the abandoned Fort Phantom Hill site and then around ranches founded in the 1880s and farms established shortly thereafter. At this site in 1895, Reese Davis, Joe Swent and Alex Boyd built the Boyd School. The community that developed nearby came to be known as Boyd Chapel. Over the next decades, Boyd Chapel was shaped by early area landowners. These included Guy Arthur Hillier, a New York native who herded sheep from south Texas to this area, where he met and married Minnie Estes. Alexander Brown Young and his wife came to this area in 1897 from east Texas. They settled in the Boyd Chapel community with five sons, including their oldest, Thomas O. Young, who had a wife and family of his own. The Young family deeded land for Methodist and Baptist churches, and a tabernacle, school and teacherage. Judge L. Crow and his wife Dora built a unique house on a rise, using concrete, as well as stone gathered from around the U.S.; they cultivated an orchard and berry fields. In 1916, Raymond Young built a general store and gas station, the only one in Boyd Chapel. As the farming community grew, cotton became its primary crop. As in much of rural Texas, World War II greatly impacted the community's population, with young adults serving in the Armed Forces or finding work in urban centers in support of the war. In 1947, the school consolidated into the Anson school district. Today, only burials in the nearby Neinda Cemetery link the present agricultural fields to the community known as Boyd Chapel. (2006) |
