New Colony

New Colony is a rural community located on U.S. Highway 59 about four miles northeast of Linden in east central Cass County. Pioneers arrived in the area from South Carolina in the late 1880s, and one of the settlers, Mrs. J. T. Latham, suggested the name of New Colony to honor their new home. The colonists established the New Colony Baptist Church in 1889, and charter members included the Carwile, Elgins, Washington, Crowson, and Martin families. By 1891 services were held in a log schoolhouse. Zachariah H. Carwile donated land for a church in 1904. The building was destroyed in a 1908 cyclone, but members rebuilt the structure within a year. New Colony Cemetery sat behind the church. In the 1930s the farming community had numerous homes, several businesses, and its own school district. The settlement remained a dispersed farming area throughout the twentieth century. In 2000 New Colony had sixty-five residents and at least one business, a woodworking shop. The oldest marked grave in New Colony Cemetery was that of Z. H. Carwile, who died in 1917.