Gonzales, Gonzales County
Around the time of Emancipation, African Americans made up 30% of the total population in Gonzales County. Legend says the plantation owners came together to give five acres of land for a community of their newly freed slaves. Part of these five acres included the old slavery-era “burying ground,” where slaves who had died were buried, generally in unmarked graves. The slaves named their new community Terryville, in honor of Milam Terry, the only free black person in Gonzales County before the Civil War. Upon these five acres, the black citizens grew Terryville into a thriving self-contained community during the Reconstruction Era. The only historic feature of Terryville that remains is the cemetery, its marked and unmarked graves a testament to the generations of work and sacrifice made by the black community of Gonzales County. Records of Terryville are scarce, but existing documentation suggests a community in which these formerly enslaved people built a life for themselves and set their families up for prosperity and success. By 1876, a Terryville school served elementary students. Terryville’s school joined a district which had the distinction as being the only one in the county to include only black schools. Other community institutions included a Baptist church and general store. Its citizens contributed to the economy and commerce of Gonzales County. The town of Terryville eventually faded, except for the cemetery. For the decades it existed, Terryville was a place where Texans, free from bondage, flourished. (2022)