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Good
old New Corn Hill
by Clay
Coppedge | |
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The Holy
Trinity Catholic Church in New
Corn Hill
Photo Courtesy Bob Crain, 2-04 |
Maybe
you have been to New
Corn Hill and thought you were in Corn
Hill, or Cornhill depending on your spelling preference and which map you're
using. What some people think of as Corn Hill is really New Corn Hill, the place
on FM 1105 where rolling pasture and prairie converge at the beautiful and historic
Holy Trinity Catholic Church.
Until recently there wasn't a sign on FM
1105 announcing a driver's arrival in New Corn Hill. The nearest sign was for
Theon, a mile or so south.
As Monk Ivicic will tell you, "Theon doesn't have anything to do with it."
Ivicic, who retired from the Texas Department of Transportation
last year, took it upon himself to get signs posted on FM 1105. People were getting
Theon and New
Corn Hill confused. The new signs are part of an attempt to put an end to
the confusion. |
| The site
of the original Corn Hill community is now referred to as Old
Corn Hill but is spelled Cornhill on old maps and on a historical marker at
Cornhill Cemetery. The site is on Willis Creek, two miles south of Jarrell, just
east of the IH-35 frontage road. |
Signs alongside the frontage road today point you to the Cornhill
Cemetery, but there are other remnants of the once-thriving community before
you get there: a windmill, some old houses and outbuildings, and an abandoned
two-story structure that was once a hotel and later a residence.
These
are the few reminders left of a time when Cornhill was a thriving community, back
in the days before the Bartlett and Western Railroad's track bypassed the town.
Ivicic says a trio of Cornhill landowners refused to grant the railroad right-of-way
to the Bartlett and Western so the railroad laid its tracks just north of town.
The tracks ended at a new town on the prairie, Jarrell. |
To say
people in Cornhill packed up and moved to Jarrell
wouldn't be exactly true because there was no packing to it. Instead, most of
the people in Cornhill hooked their houses to a John Case steam engine and moved
to Jarrell, en masse, inside their houses. "If those landowners had used logic,
they would have let the railroad go through their property," Ivicic says. "Old
Corn Hill would still be there."
Instead, the old community has faded
from view and memory to the point where a lot of Williamson County natives don't
know there ever was an old Cornhill. "It was news to me," Ivicic says. "It's news
to most people."
Ivicic's ties are to New Corn Hill. He has researched
the area's history and talked to long-time residents whose families go back generations.
He has collected some amazing old photographs, including one that shows a mercantile
and possibly a saloon located next to the Holy Trinity church. The buildings were
owned by his great grandfather, Ignac Kubacac. |
| Ivicic
says the unofficial boundaries of New Corn Hill extend roughly from Jarrell
to Schwertner to Walburg.
That includes property owned by Bill Schwertner, which was once the heart of Cornhill.
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The most
tangible reminder of the old community is the Cornhill
Cemetery, which was established in 1886. According to a plaque outside the
cemetery's gates, community leaders, three Civil War soldiers and soldiers from
other conflicts are buried there.
Inside is a plaque next to the headstone
of James G. Wilkinson, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto and three sessions
of the Congress of the Republic of Texas. The headstone was moved to Cornhill
from Burleson County.
His wife, Amanda Hope, was one of the "Old 300,"
Stephen F. Austin's first colony.
Both her body and her husband's are
actually buried at the State
Cemetery in Austin. The Daughters of the Republic of Texas arranged for the
reburials in 1836. | |
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