Shiloh

Shiloh was a farming community off Farm Road 2110 ten miles southwest of Crockett in south central Houston County. It developed around a church and campground built by Stephen F. Box in 1834. During the 1840s Shiloh was the site of numerous religious revivals, attended by families from Houston and surrounding counties who often camped there for a week at a time. William Johnson, a brother of President Andrew Johnson, settled in the area in 1853. A school, taught by C. M. Davis, was open by the 1850s. During the Civil War the old Shiloh church grounds were used as mustering point for Houston County men who served in the Confederate Army. After the war the town gradually declined, though a post office operated there from 1867 to 1869. In the mid-1930s Shiloh still had a church and a few houses, but by the mid-1960s only a few widely scattered houses remained in the area. In 1973 a Texas Historical Commission marker was placed at the townsite.