Waterville was a

ghost town Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to: * Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned Film and television * Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser * Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...

in Wharton County in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. The former settlement was located along Water Hole Creek not far from the site of Preston, another ghost town. During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

, the town provided soldiers to the

Confederate States Army The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...

as well as a

Home Guard Home guard is a title given to various military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or reserve force raised for local defense. The term "home guard" was first officially used in the American Civil War, starting wi ...

unit. Waterville had a post office intermittently between 1859 and 1880. Local residents attempted to restart postal service in 1883 but it was permanently stopped the following year.

History

The settlement of Waterville sprang up along Water Hole Creek near a place called Will's Water Hole. In January 1859 a post office was set up in the community. Waterville was near Preston in southeast Wharton County. The town was situated along a major trail from Matagorda on the

Gulf of Mexico The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...

and San Felipe on the

Brazos River The Brazos River ( , ), called the ''Río de los Brazos de Dios'' (translated as "The River of the Arms of God") by early Spanish explorers, is the 11th-longest river in the United States at from its headwater source at the head of Blackwater Dr ...

. In the Civil War, Waterville raised a company of soldiers for the Confederate Army called the "Rough and Ready Mounted Rifles" under Captain C. F. Whittington. In 1861 there were 27 men enrolled but the number expanded to 39 the following year. In 1862 the town was the headquarters for Colonel Reuben R. Brown's 33rd Texas Cavalry Regiment. Waterville's Home Guard unit numbered 49 men in 1862 but 18 of the men had no firearms. The available weapons were a motley collection of nine rifles, 12 shotguns and five pistols. Postal service was discontinued in 1867, restarted in 1872 and stopped again in 1880. In 1883 a new application was submitted for postal service. Evidently there were too few residents because in August 1884 postal service was stopped and never revived.

Geography

The 1883 postal application located Waterville on a direct line between

Wharton Wharton may refer to: Academic institutions * Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania * Wharton County Junior College * Paul R. Wharton High School * Wharton Center for Performing Arts, at Michigan State University Places * Wharton, Ch ...

and Pledger. The site was from Wharton and from Pledger. Five-ninths of the distance along a straight line drawn on a map between Wharton and Pledger places Waterville very close to

Farm to Market Road 1096 A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

and Water Hole Creek. There are turf farms nearby.

References

{{Wharton County, Texas Ghost towns in South Texas