History of Lynchburg, Texas: From Ferry to Fading Community
Published: 1952
Updated: November 24, 2020
Lynchburg (Lynchburgh), also known as Lynch's Ferry, is at the junction of Interstate Highway 10 and the Crosby-Lynchburg Road and at the confluence of Buffalo Bayou and the San Jacinto River, some ten miles east of Houston in east central Harris County. The town grew up at the north end of Burnet Bay, where Nathaniel Lynch established a crossing known as Lynch's Ferry or Lynchburg in 1822. Lynchburg, one of the principal settlements in the area before the battle of San Jacinto, is one of the communities from the revolutionary period that served its purpose and then faded into obscurity. John D. Taylor settled on the opposite bank of the San Jacinto at a point known as Midway, where Baron de Bastrop and Stephen F. Austin in 1824 to issue titles to land. David G. Burnet built his home at Burnet Bay a few miles above the ferry and in 1831 located a boiler and a steam engine at Lynchburg. In 1834 or 1835 Lynch divided part of his land into blocks and named the plat Lynchburg, but the anticipated settlers failed to arrive. A post office was established in 1835, discontinued by 1843, and reestablished in 1870; it ceased operation again in 1927, when mail was delivered from Pasadena. The population of the community was 205 in 1840, but by 1892 the town had only a saloon and two general stores. During the early 1900s the population was 150. In 1905 the local White school had thirty-one pupils and one teacher, and the local Black school had four students and one teacher. The town population was reported as 100 from 1926 until 1965, during which time the community had a maximum of five businesses. In 1990 the population was again reported as 100, but estimates were not available in 2000. The Lynchburg Ferry, formerly known as Lynch's Ferry, was still in operation in 2009.
Bibliography:
David G. McComb, Houston: The Bayou City (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1969; rev. ed., Houston: A History, 1981). Andrew Forest Muir, "The Municipality of Harrisburg, 1835–1836," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 56 (July 1952). Marilyn M. Sibley, The Port of Houston (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968).
Places:
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Claudia Hazlewood, “Lynchburg, TX,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/lynchburg-tx.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
HLL75
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- 1952
- November 24, 2020
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