KENDLETON

Fort Bend County

Marker is at site, US 59, 30 yds. E of Collins' service station. [1969] 

The site on which Kendleton now stands was originally a Mexican land grant to settler Elizabeth Powell, whose house was an early day stage stop. 

During the Texas Revolution, in 1836, Santa Anna's Army camped near hear. Later the settlements of Oak Hill and Humbolt existed briefly.

Kendleton began during the Civil War reconstruction when Wm. E. Kendall sold land, for as little as 50 cents an acre, to assist freed Negroes in starting their own farms. The rural village was named in his honor when the railroad came through in 1884.


 Read more   Freedmen's settlements    Benjamin Franklin Williams  Powell Point  San Bernard River  Turkey Creek


KENDLETON, TEXAS-POSTMASTERS

Williams, Benj. F., 15 Apr 1884

Randle, Hamilton F., 20 Jan 1885

Blakely, Jas. M., 28 Jan 1888

Goss, Wm. R., 8 Jan 1890

Matthews, Thos. W., 11 Feb 1891

Pres(t)on, Lansford O., 1 Apr 1892

Smith, Josie W., 16 Dec 1897

Phipps, Alex. F., 30 Sep 1901

Ogilby, Hugh J., 23 May 1907 (Declined)

(Order rescinded 13 Aug 1907)

Phipps, Alex. F., 30 Sep 1901

Discontinued 29 Oct 1907; mail to Beasley

(Order rescinded 20 Nov 1907)

Scott, Jas. H., 20 Nov 1907

Howard, Henry K.,6 Oct 1913

Darst, Homer N., 14 Jly 1915

Emerson, Wm. B., 25 Jan 1924

Hardey, Rodney J., 10 Jan 1928

Emerson, Osie B., 12 May 1928

Howard, Clarence M., 5 Feb 1931


Powell Point School          

Located at Powell Point School Rd. about 2 mi. north of Kendleton [1994]

William E. Kendall, an Anglo lawyer from Richmond, Texas, subdivided his plantation here into 100-acre farm tracts in 1869. He sold the land exclusively to Freedmen and by the 1880s a distinctly African American community named Kendleton had developed here. In 1890 local A. M. E. churches built three one-room schools to form Common School District No. 4, an all-African American district which included the original land grant of Elizabeth Powell. Tellie B. Mitchell, a Kendleton native and graduate of Wiley College (1903), returned to Kendleton and established Powell Point School in 1904 in a two-room schoolhouse. The school prospered and in 1918 graduated six students, five of whom went on to college and became educators. In 1923 Mitchell persuaded the Rosenwald Foundation to grant funds to build a new Powell Point School facility here with six classrooms, a library, and an auditorium. The school became a model institution and entry into its student body was an advantage sought by African American throughout southeast Texas. T. B. Mitchell served as school principal until 1954. Powell Point, today an elementary school, is a locally revered institution which symbolizes Kendleton's unique cultural heritage and promise for the future. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995                                                 


Site of the Home of Elizabeth Powell                [1936]

Built before March 21, 1831, when the land was granted to her. This point marks the most eastern advance of Urrea's army and the most southern advance of Santa Anna, who turned east from here to the Brazos and San Jacinto. Here the Mexican Army encamped after the Battle of San Jacinto.                                                               Read more


 


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