The picture here was brought in to the Tribune by reader Brenda Grant. It is a picture of the Old Union School that was once located off Hwy. 67 near what is now Corley. Although current maps indicate this community is called Old Union, it apparently was also known as Poer in the 19th century and had a post office until the early 1900s.
Poer was located three and one-half miles west of Simms in central Bowie County and was settled around the Poer Plantation in 1830. The post office was named for John F. Poer who was appointed the postmaster on September 15, 1897. The post office was discontinued in September of 1904 and all the mail was sent to Simms.
Old Union is located on U.S. 67 about nine miles southwest of New Boston and twenty-five miles southwest of Texarkana in southern Bowie County. Settlement may have begun as early as 1830, when school was conducted out of a loghewn house in the area. The schoolhouse also held church services for various denominations, and the name Union was derived from the Union Church.
Martin A. Poer was the original grantee of the land where Old Union was established, and he received his patent on May 15, 1848.
James Poer and his wife moved to Madison County, Tennessee sometime before 1830 and lived there for awhile. In 1831 a letter was delivered to Martin A Poer in Shelby County, Tennessee. In 1834 or 35 they, the whole clan, moved on down into Arkansas. Presley Maulding taught school one winter north of the Red River as they moved. Martin served under Generals Rusk and Kyer in moving the Indians out of Texas and into Oklahoma. At some point they met and talked to James Bowie and he told them one of his favorite camping spots was on Dodie Branch there at Simms. Jim Bowie died in 1836, as we all know.
When James Poer settled here in Bowie County, he picked his land on the camping site that Jim Bowie always used when he came down through here from Washington, Arkansas, or wherever. Now the James Bowie School has been built and named for him at that place and for that reason. The Simms family eventually bought land and gave money and land for building the school. Mr Harvey Simms remembered and believed that story.
Sarah Mary Cochran Poer probably died while the family lived in Madison County, Tennessee and James Poer married a second wife. We only know that her name was Elizabeth. There were seven more children by Elizabeth.
1. Jane, born 1826, married Sam Walker. He had 640 acres in Bowie County, Texas.
2. Susan, born 1828, married Pink Holcomb 3. Martin A, born 1829, died young 4. Calvin, born 1831 5. Daniel, born 1832 6. John Green, born 1833 7. Robert “Bob”, born 1835.
We do not have information about the last four boys.
James Poer died in 1852 and is buried in the Lumpkin Cemetery south of Dalby Springs. He was about 64 years old when he came to the Republic or Texas and about 70 when he died.
Social activities in the farming settlement probably centered on school and church functions. Old Union Cemetery was established by the 1860s, and the earliest marked graves date to the mid-1860s. In the early part of the twentieth century through the 1930s Old Union had a school, two Baptist churches, several businesses, and many farms and homes. The cemetery was still in use in the latter 1900s, and in 1990 the town had a population of 238. That figure remained constant through 2000.
Information courtesy of the Texas Historical Association, the New Boston Genealogy Society and the Bowie County TXGenWeb.
We would love to know more about the Old Union School and many other fascinating historical sites around Bowie County. If you have information, please call Kenny Mitchell at 903-6285801 or email at kmitchell@bowiecountynow.com
