Chappell Hill

Chappell (Chapel) Hill is located at the junction of Farm roads 1155 and 2447, fifty-seven miles northwest of Houston in southeastern Washington County. By 1847 the site was a trading locality, one mile from Cedar Creek settlement, an early Methodist center. Trader Jacob Haller's wife, Mary Hargrove Haller, bought 100 acres for the townsite; she named the town for her grandfather, Robert Wooding Chappell, an early settler. In 1849 she laid out and sold town lots. In the 1850s Chappell Hill grew rapidly as the center of large cotton plantations. Mary Haller established a post office in 1847, and missionary Robert Alexander organized the Chappell Hill Methodist Church the same year. In 1851 the Hubert Masonic Lodge (still functioning in 1988) was chartered. An academy was organized the previous year. The Methodist Texas Conference established Chappell Hill Male and Female Institute (1852) and Soule University (1856). Between 1854 and 1878 five Texas Methodist conferences were held at Chappell Hill. The town was incorporated on April 7, 1856. To obtain better transportation for their growing cotton harvests, Chappell Hill residents held a meeting in 1852 to encourage Houston businessmen to construct the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. In 1856 Chappell Hill planters William M. Sledge and Col. W. W. Browning organized the Washington County Rail Road, which held stockholders' meetings in Chappell Hill. With extension of the Washington County Railroad to Chappell Hill in 1859, the town became a distribution center. During the Civil War Chappell Hill had a Confederate quartermaster depot and a military hospital; Camp Felder was in the vicinity. The Twenty-first Texas Lancers were raised at Chappell Hill. The Texas Ranger newspaper was published there from 1851 to 1853.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.