CHOCOLATE, TEXAS. Chocolate settlement was on Chocolate Bayou in northern Calhoun County. After Texas independence Sylvanus Hatch purchased a league of land near the stream, where he and his brother Joseph settled with their families in 1846. Hatch built a large home known as Agua Dulce near the bayou. Episcopalian services were held in the community, and Nelson E. Carrington served as a teacher. St. Paul's-on-the-Prairie Church was consecrated in 1870. The community school, which reported one teacher and thirty-one pupils in 1904, was consolidated with the Port Lavaca schools in 1918. The community subsequently declined, and by 1936 church services and school classes had ceased, and county highway maps no longer noted the townsite. Two tropical storms that struck in 1942 and 1945 virtually destroyed St. Paul's Church, erasing the last vestige of the community.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Calhoun County Historical Commission, Shifting Sands of Calhoun County, Texas (Port Lavaca, Texas, ca. 1980).

Diana J. Kleiner