KIRBY CHAPEL, TEXAS. Kirby Chapel is a community three miles north of Prairie View and six miles northeast of Hempstead in northern Waller County. It may have begun as early as 1858, when Jared Kirby and his wife Helen Marr Kirby^qv held worship meetings in their home. The Kirbys later gave land to the community for a nondenominational church, school, and cemetery. The church eventually became a Methodist institution. The school probably conducted its classes in the church building until 1893, when the Kirby Chapel School merged with the neighboring Pond Creek School to form the Union school district. In 1930 the Union district was consolidated with the Waller Independent School District. Though by 1939 the church had stopped holding services, its building stood until 1969. In 1990 a cemetery and a few houses were still located at Kirby Chapel.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Martha Davis et al., A Directory of Cemeteries in Waller County (Hempstead, Texas: Waller County Historical Commission, 1977). Waller County Historical Survey Committee, A History of Waller County, Texas (Waco: Texian, 1973).

Paul M. Lucko