Woodland

Woodland is on Farm Road 1449 two miles northwest of Kirvin in northwest Freestone County. The area was settled in the late 1840s and early 1850s by pioneer families. A church was organized in 1854 and a school before 1857. In 1903 the school had an enrollment of twenty-nine. The early post office was named Bonner for the first postmaster, W. E. Bonner. The community had a general store, cotton gins, blacksmith shops, gristmills, and three churches. Land for a cemetery was donated by L. R. Wortham, who also owned the general store. The cemetery was named Woodland Cemetery, and the earliest grave was laid in 1862. Woodland College for Boys was established in 1863 on land donated by Wortham. The college had an enrollment of more than 300 students; it became a grade school with authorization by the Texas legislature in 1866 and was renamed Woodland Academy. The academy was discontinued in 1905 and moved to nearby Kirvin. The coming of the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway through Kirvin in 1906 led to the decline of Woodland. The churches, schools, businesses, and most of the population moved to Kirvin or nearby areas. From the 1930s through the 1960s only the cemetery and a few houses were still in the area. In the late 1980s a church and cemetery were still there.