Sweet Union

Sweet Union, also known as Hogjaw, is a farming community on Farm Road 1247 near Larrison Creek and twenty-two miles south of Rusk in southern Cherokee County. It was founded in 1865 by freed slaves from the nearby Wiley Thompson plantation and from Angelina County and was originally known as Hogjaw. This unusual name reportedly resulted from an incident that occurred soon after the community was founded. A local man was placed on trial for stealing a hog. He denied the charges, but the state's witness produced the hog's head, which he claimed to have found hidden in a stump. The man was convicted; the town name Hogjaw stuck. A combination school and church was built in 1887, and around 1899 the building was replaced by a new structure built by Nelson Jones, who renamed the community Sweet Union. During the 1930s Sweet Union had a church, a school, a cemetery, and a number of houses. In 1964 the school was consolidated into the Wells Independent School District, and in 1990 only the church, a cemetery, and a few scattered houses remained. In the 1980s descendants of the original black settlers still lived in the area. In 2000 the population was forty.