Harmony

Harmony, on Farm Road 256 six miles southwest of Woodville and two miles south of U.S. Highway 190 in Tyler County, is centered around the Harmony Baptist Church. It lies near the old Spanish road running south from Nacogdoches past Liberty. Before Harmony was established around 1890, Martha Wheat, a daughter of early settler Josiah Wheat, married Andrew George, who had a tanyard in the vicinity. He manufactured boots and other leather goods. The old mill that was used to grind oak bark for tanning the hides was long in the possession of family descendants. Arnold Rhodes organized a Baptist church at Harmony in 1881, one of many he helped start in East Texas; his son Jeff served the community as pastor for many years. Nancy Shivers and her son R. M. Shivers, the grandfather of Governor Allan Shivers, were charter members of this Baptist church. The church building, like most of those built in Tyler County before 1900, was used for both church and school. The building was moved several times and was used for both purposes for many years. Harmony had no post office. In 1835 land grants in the area included those to Jane Taylor, A. Blunt, and B. Lanier. In 1965 homes or parcels of land were owned around Harmony by more than a dozen families. The 1983 county highway map showed a church building at Harmony. In the mid-1980s Harmony was in a cattle and timber area and because of its scenic locale was an attractive location for retirement and recreation.