MAUD & the UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

Organized as a Mission by Rev. Thomas Jefferson Milam of Old Boston, on the farm of Jessie J. Ball, Three Springs Community, August 10, 1874.  Original meeting house was built immediately on Ball's property.

Samuel D. Knapp (1841-1922) a charter member, founded the town of Maud, and was its first postmaster. He donated the present site, and the building was moved here in 1880.  The Mission became a Church in 1897.  A Tornado razed the second building in 1914.  Present sanctuary, fourth for the church, was erected in 1940 with funds given by Miss Jennie Tapp *, and was enlarged in 1956.

The population of Maud was mentioned the 1882-83 Texas State Gazetteer and Business Directory as having a population of 150, and one 'Steam Saw Mill and Gin', two churches, Methodist and a Baptist and one School.  Its Commerce:  Exports Cotton and Lumber.  Tri-weekly mail from Bunker Hill by carrier.  Several relative lines are mention as business owners:  Marion C White, Gin and grist mill.  J W Bonham, blacksmith and Harris & Turner, general store. Also, Samuel D Knapp, Postmaster, and founder of Maud. 

REDWATER

The first community in this area was Mooresville ** (2 mi. E.) settled in 1840 by the Charles Moores (1776-1840) family. It had disappeared before this town grew up near the Daniels and Spence Sawmill in 1875.  Because of mill workers disregard for religion, the village was first named Ingersoll for the famous agnostic of that day, Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899). 

A branch of the St. Louis Southwestern (Cotton Belt) Railway arrived here in the late 1870s, attracting more upstanding citizens.  William Thomas Fagan built two more sawmills in the early 1880s.  English-born Earnest Thomas Page (1860-1937) opened a general store , which also housed the town's first post office (1881).  Church-going townspeople objected to the name Ingersoll and suggested changing it to Redwater, for the color of Spring and well water in the area.  A town vote in 1894 made Redwater the official name. 

In 1914 a tornado destroyed many businesses here, but Redwater quickly rebuilt.  The economy was based on farming and lumbering until 1941, when the Red River Army Ammunition Depot and Lone Star Ordnance Plant were built just north of town.  The opening of the International Paper Mill in the 1970s has created new interest in lumbering and tree farming. 

NOTES: 

* Miss Jennie Tapp was the daughter of Charles Y & Mary (White) Tapp, Elias's daughter.

**Mooresville - Elias White and family first settled in 1846/1847, our Texas roots.