HLRGazette Archives

Wood County History

By LOU MALLORY - Chairperson, Wood County Historical Commission

 Clover Hill, Texas. Clover Hill was on FM 69 five mile northeast of Quitman in north central Wood County.

 In 1856 the area was settled by families from Georgia and Alabama. The next year, these newcomers built the Clover Hill Baptist Church on a hill covered with yellow clover. Before a school was established in the community, local children attended classes at Pleasant Grove, seven miles to the north.

 Another Clover Hill Baptist Church was reportedly organized in 1886, and by 1896, Clover Hill had a public school with 31 students. By 1911 the community also had two sawmills, a store and a cotton gin.

 In 1917 the local school was destroyed by a storm and in 1918, a new school was built. The cotton gin was closed around 1925. By the mid-1930s, Clover Hill comprised a church, a cemetery, two businesses and a number of dwellings concentrated along the roads.

 In 1943, Bobby Manziel made the fourth major oil field discovery in Wood County just a mile north of the community. The Manziel Field, which led to a brief boom at Clover Hill, for a time produced a large percentage of Wood County's total oil output. This field was still in operation in 1988.

 Around the same time as the oil field discovery, Clover Hill received telephone and electric service. In 1944 the community's school was consolidated with the Quitman schools. By 1960 all that remained at Cloverhill (now spelled as one word on maps) was the church, the cemetery and a few widely scattered dwellings.

 Less than a mile to the northwest of Clover Hill, Dry Creek was dammed in 1961-62 to form Lake Quitman. The community did not grow significantly after that.

 Speer, Texas. Speer, also known as Stinson and Stinson's Mill, was near Big Sandy Creek and the present route of FM 312, three miles northeast of Pine Mills and 11 miles east of Quitman in the eastern portion of Wood County.

 The area was settled in the early 1840s by Baptist minister Prescott (Press) Davis and his wife Dorcus. Davis is said to have built the Press Davis Crossing and the Press Davis Bridge over nearby Big Sandy Creek.

 Some sources state that the area was known as the Speer community by the time the Davis and his wife arrived. However, another account suggests that it was not called Speer until later, after the community developed around the mill and home of James Alexander Stinson. He was a local plantation owner who had served as a colonel in the Confederate Army.

 By 1853, land grant recipient Isham Burnett had built a gristmill at his homestead in the vicinity, and sometime between 1865 and 1868, Stinson gained possession of a sawmill at or near the Burnett mill site, at what had become known as Stinson's Pond. Stinson is said to have been one of the first in the area to experiment with growing fruit trees, ribbon cane, wheat and beans. He is reported to have owned 43 slaves.

 After the Civil War, Stinson ran his plantation on the share-cropping system, and at one time, the Stinson property had 14 tenant houses. One account reports that the community that developed around his plantation and mill was known first as Stinson and Stinson's Mill and then later on, as Speer.

 In 1869, Stinson had a two-story house built at Speer from pine and oak grown on his large plantation. In 1864, Stinson's daughter Sarah Ann (Sallie) was married by Press Davis in the parlor of the Stinson mansion to future Texas governor James Stephen Hogg.

 In 1886, the Speer post office opened, and by 1890, J.A. Stinson was serving as postmaster.

 By 1906, however, the Speer post office had closed. Little more is known about Speer, but in 1967, the Stinson home received a state historical marker.