Shiloh, TX (DeWitt County)

Shiloh was an early school and church community four miles northeast of the site of present Yorktown in western DeWitt County. In 1847 Hence McBride Pridgen bought 200 acres and soon was cultivating thirty of them using slave labor. At least five other families also began settling there in the vicinity of Shiloh Creek. In 1851 John Kieth Rankin organized what became a Methodist church named Shiloh in 1852. The Shiloh Home Guards were organized under H. G. Woods in 1861 for service to the Confederacy. The church was active until at least 1900. The Shiloh school operated from 1856 to 1914, when it was replaced by the more conveniently located Metting school. The area was by then predominantly German. The Metting school closed in 1950, and all that remains of the community is Woods Cemetery, though in 1961 the locale was still called Shiloh.