Wallingville

Perryville (Parryville) is at the intersection of Farm roads 2088 and 852, eight miles southeast of Winnsboro in northeastern Wood County. It was reportedly named after a local landowner and sawmill operator and is said to have absorbed an early sawmill community known as Wallingville or Wallington. Perryville was near Wood County's first public road, called Jefferson Road, built through the area in 1853 for use by local farmers hauling their cotton to Jefferson. Around 1856 a sawmill was built nearby, and a store was opened. In 1860 a post office under the name Parryville was established at the site; it was discontinued briefly in 1866, then reopened from 1867 to 1869. A second post office, called Perryville, operated from 1894 to 1906. Perryville at one time had as many as five cotton gins. By 1900 it had a population of ninety-eight, two churches, a school, and a store. In the late 1930s its population was reported as twenty, and in the 1940s the community had numerous scattered dwellings, two schools, two churches, and three businesses, including a sawmill. Its population was forty in 1949. In 1960 two churches remained, but the businesses had disappeared, and many of the dwellings had been abandoned. From the early 1970s to 2000 the population of Perryville was reported as fifty-two. The Perryville Baptist Church, organized in 1884 as the County Line Missionary Baptist Church, received a Texas Historical Commission marker in the mid-1980s. At that time the original building of the church, erected in 1908 just off what is now Farm Road 852, was still being used for services. The Perryville Methodist Church received a Texas Historical Marker in 1997 and was still active. No population figures were available after 2000. Country singer Ray Price was born on a farm near Perryville.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.