CHINA GROVE PLANTATION
CHINA GROVE, TEXAS : Brazoria County
China Grove is twelve miles north of Angleton, two miles south of Rosharon, and west of State Highway 288 in northwest Brazoria County. It was named for the chinaberry trees planted for shade by Warren D. C. Hall , owner of the original land grant. Hall, who also raised figs and oranges, operated a plantation called China Grove for a time, then sold it in 1843 to Albert Sidney Johnston and Albert T. Burnley. qJohnston took over his partner's interest, operated the plantation until 1849, and sold it in 1852. The China Grove station on the Columbia Tap Railroad, across the tracks from the plantation, served the area from at least as early as 1877 to 1892, when the town of Custer was established. In 1896 a black school in China Grove had eighty-seven pupils, and in 1906 two local black schools had 108 pupils and two teachers; that year a local white school had seven pupils and one teacher. In 1947 China Grove was a common school district with both white and black schools, but by 1974 only a single building and scattered dwellings remained. Of the original plantation, only hedges of Cherokee roses, thought to have been planted by Johnston, remained intact.
China Grove is twelve miles north of Angleton, two miles south of Rosharon, and west of State Highway 288 in northwest Brazoria County. It was named for the chinaberry trees planted for shade by Warren D. C. Hall , owner of the original land grant. Hall, who also raised figs and oranges, operated a plantation called China Grove for a time, then sold it in 1843 to Albert Sidney Johnston and Albert T. Burnley. qJohnston took over his partner's interest, operated the plantation until 1849, and sold it in 1852. The China Grove station on the Columbia Tap Railroad, across the tracks from the plantation, served the area from at least as early as 1877 to 1892, when the town of Custer was established. In 1896 a black school in China Grove had eighty-seven pupils, and in 1906 two local black schools had 108 pupils and two teachers; that year a local white school had seven pupils and one teacher. In 1947 China Grove was a common school district with both white and black schools, but by 1974 only a single building and scattered dwellings remained. Of the original plantation, only hedges of Cherokee roses, thought to have been planted by Johnston, remained intact.
Plantation Tales:
As a child my hair used to stand straight up when she would tell of the wagon that moved down wilderness roads in the dark of the night, with never a horse drawing it — the wagon that was full of severed heads and dismembered limbs; and the yellow horse, the ghastly dream horse that raced up and down the stairs of the grand old plantation house where a wicked woman lay dying; and the ghost-switches that swished against doors when none dared open those doors lest reason be blasted at what was seen. And in many of her tales, also, appeared the old, deserted plantation mansion, with the weeds growing rank about it and the ghostly pigeons flying up from the rails of the veranda.
Author unknown
Author unknown