Clinton, Texas
Clinton is on Farm Road 3211
eight miles west-southwest of Greenville in west
central Hunt County. It was established on land sold
by J. M. Massey for five dollars to the St. Louis
Southwestern Railway, which built through the area
in 1887. Massey sold his land to the railroad on
condition that a depot for a town be constructed on
the property within five years of the sale date in
1887.
The depot, named Clinton after an official of the line, was built the same year. A post office began operation in Clinton in 1888 and remained open until sometime after 1930, perhaps as late as the 1950s. In 1904 the community reported 138 residents. The population fell, however, from 100 in 1910 to eighty-eight in 1933, when the community had six businesses. By 1965, when the last population figures were reported, Clinton's population was thirty. There is also a town named Clinton in DeWitt County.
Clinton Cemetery.
According to local legend, this graveyard originated when an unknown cowboy was buried near this site with the permission of landowner James Massey, who designated the spot as a community cemetery. Massey also gave the land for a railroad right-of-way along which the town of Clinton was built. The earliest marked grave in the cemetery is that of R. J. McAdams (1836-1859), wife of J. E. McAdams. The village was named Masseyville in 1899, but was later renamed Clinton for Charles S. Clinton, an official of the Cotton Belt Railway. More than 500 graves in this cemetery and a few scattered homes in the vicinity were all that remained of the Clinton Community in 1998. The cemetery is a
record of the pioneers of Hunt County. (1998)
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