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Darby, TX https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/darby-tx

History of Darby, Polk County: An Overview of the Settlement

By: Robert Wooster

Published: 1952

Updated: December 1, 1994

Darby was near an old Indian trail and campground about four miles west of Moscow in central Polk County. The area was settled by Europeans before the Civil War; among the early settlers was an Irish family named Criswell, who arrived in 1835. The community was eventually named for Augustus Darby, a slaveowner who moved to the area during the 1850s. It is unique among Polk County settlements, as many of its early residents were from Ireland and Germany. Darby had a Catholic church and became a leather-tanning center for local hunters. A school was also established there. Residents formed the Darby Farmers Alliance, which met from at least 1886 to 1890. Darby was still a rural community during the 1930s, and in the 1940s it had the only Catholic cemetery in the county. Maps from the 1980s do not show the settlement.

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Bibliography:

Emma Haynes, The History of Polk County (MS, Sam Houston Regional Library, Liberty, Texas, 1937; rev. ed. 1968). A Pictorial History of Polk County, Texas, 1846–1910 (Livingston, Texas: Polk County Bicentennial Commission, 1976; rev. ed. 1978).

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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.

Robert Wooster, “Darby, TX,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed May 19, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/darby-tx.

TID: HVD08

Original Publication Date:
1952
Most Recent Revision Date:
December 1, 1994