The Town of Hackneyville
The following stoty is taken from the book Dubina, A Place of Freedom and Hope written by Ed and Margie Janecka.
In the 1830s or 1840s there was a group of Anglos from the southern part of the United States who established a community near the present site of Dubina. Little is known about these individuals. All traces of these folks were gone by the time the first Czech settlers arrived, with the exception of some foundations where buildings once stood. The information that we had was supplied by some of the Anglos who were still living in the area when the first settlers arrived. The town was called Hackneyville. We also know that there was once a church in this town because one resident procured a pew from the church. The community seemed to have prospered until unfortunately it was decimated by disease. We know that there are 29 unmarked graves on the hillside near where the town was supposed to have been. No one knows the cause of death but it’s very possible that there could have been a cholera epidemic or smallpox. Joseph Peter later reported that Zeke or Jake Brown showed him a place where seven members of the Storm or Storz family were buried. They died of something called the black measles. This disease was highly contagious and friends of the family set a designated spot in the woods where they would drop off food and the family would pick it up. After a few weeks no one picked up the food. No one would live in these houses, until a family from Europe by the name of Gloves arrived.
No one knows for sure where these individuals came from. Some sources say they were from Mississippi and others say Alabama. It is interesting to note that there is a Hackneyville in Alabama. After some research, it was discovered that the town in Alabama was started in the early 1840s and sources there say that some of the residents moved to Texas. Whatever the case may be, the remaining Hackneyville residents sold all of their belongings to a slave owner by the name of Bill Morgan. He in turn sold as much as possible to others. The rest was left to ruin. The surviving residents of the community went back to where they came from or went farther west.
Footprints Of Fayette
Fayette County is one of the most historic counties in Texas. In this weekly feature from the County Historical Commission, a rotating group of writers looks back at local history.