Novice, TX (Lamar County)

Novice is a rural community located at the junction of Farm roads 2648 and 195 about eleven miles northeast of Paris in northeastern Lamar County. The village began sometime around the early 1900s and was possibly named after a Navis family. Another explanation says that an earlier settlement called Cross Roads was renamed when a local resident donated land for a church and school, and citizens chose the name Novice to reflect the community's new beginning. Novice had a Methodist church about 1913. In the 1930s the population was listed as ten with one business, and highway maps depicted the hamlet as a crossroads with scattered farms and dwellings. After the 1950s no population statistics have been available, but Novice is included on county maps. Springhill Cemetery is located in the area.