Hermitage

Hermitage was on the banks of Kelley's Creek fifteen miles northwest of Linden and eight miles northeast of Hughes Springs in northwestern Cass County. It formed in the early 1850s, and in 1860 a post office was established there. When Texas post offices were again made part of the United States postal system after the Civil War, the post office in Hermitage was not reestablished until 1877. By 1884 the community had four syrup mills, four cotton gins, grist and saw mills, three churches, a district school, and a population of 300. During the 1880s Hermitage continued to grow, and by 1890 its population was estimated at 800. However, the community was eight miles from the nearest railroad station, and in the 1890s its population declined rapidly as businesses moved to the county's rail lines. By the late 1890s the community's population had declined to twenty. Its post office was closed in 1904, and by the 1940s Hermitage had ceased to exist as a named community.