MANHATTAN, TEXAS. Manhattan was the name of a proposed town in southeastern Matagorda County to be located at the mouth of Caney Creek on East Matagorda Bay, the easternmost part of which, at the junction of the mainland and the Matagorda Peninsula, was once called Manhattan Bay. Proposed during the boom in town speculation of 1837-39, Manhattan apparently never developed into much, though February 1838 issues of the Matagorda Bulletin reported the packet sloop Manhattan would make weekly trips between Matagorda and the town of Manhattan and also advertised plans for a Manhattan Academy, to be established at the new town of that name, with temporary trustees (many of them Masons) including M. B. Lamar, E. R. Wightman, A. C. Horton, Silas Dinsmore, R. R. Royall, Anson Jones, William H. Wharton, and Thomas J. Hardeman.qqv The academy, which had been intended to boost the development of its namesake town, never materialized. By May of 1838 an act to incorporate the Caney Navigation Company noted that three of the company's commissioners were located at Manhattan, and the 1843 act to incorporate the Matagorda Caney Navigation Company noted a place near the mouth of Caney Creek, "commonly called the town of Manhattan." No further information is available for Manhattan.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: William R. Hogan, The Texas Republic: A Social and Economic History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1946; rpt. 1969). Matagorda County Historical Commission, Historic Matagorda County (3 vols., 1986-88).
