Edom, TX
N 32° 22.320 W 095° 37.833
15S E 252501 N 3584714
Edom is the third oldest town in Van Zandt County, and it bears the name of Jacob's brother, Esau, whose name in Hebrew, "Edom" ("admoni"), means "red." Esau was the progenitor of the Edomites, who lived in the land bearing the same name.
Waymark Code: WMP82P
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 07/17/2015
Views: 1
"Red" also comes into play in the best known story about Esau and his brother, Jacob, concerning Esau's giving up his birthright to Jacob in exchange for food:
And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents. And Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison: but Rebekah loved Jacob. And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint: And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright.
While a Texas Historical Marker at the historical museum in Edom provides some background, the Handbook of Texas Online goes into greater detail: (
visit link)
Edom, at the crossing of Farm Roads 279, 314, and 2339, sixteen miles southeast of Canton in southeast Van Zandt County, is the third oldest town in the county. It was first established several miles from its present site in 1849 and organized as a post office called Hamburg in 1852. In 1855 the post office moved one mile south of the present townsite. There it was renamed Edom for the name given to Esau in the Book of Genesis. Local saloons filled with lumberjacks, freighters, and traders as the community became a stopover on the Porter's Bluff and Tyler Road. Sometime later the town was moved again to its present location. By 1860 it had a Baptist church, a Methodist church, a hotel, a Masonic lodge, a sawmill, a tanyard, a wagon factory, and a boot, shoe, and saddle shop. The Edom schools, which opened in 1866 with children of former Indian captive Cynthia Parker in attendance, enrolled 130 pupils in 1904. By 1876 a Grange was formed, and local farmers responded to worsening 1880s farm prices by forming a chapter of the Farmers' Alliance at nearby Red Hill on November 20, 1885. By 1914 the town had a cotton gin and four general stores. Railroad service failed to reach Edom, yet its population grew from 150 in the 1890s to between 200 and 300, where it remained from the 1920s to the present. Edom was an independent school district until 1966, when it was consolidated with Van. Artisans in pottery, silver jewelry, glassware, macrame, and leather crafts who settled in the town in the 1960s began Edom's annual arts and crafts fair in 1972. The community was incorporated in 1966 with 300 residents but lost its post office in 1976. In 1988 Edom had three businesses, the Frontier Red Hill Cemetery at or near the townsite, and an estimated 277 inhabitants. The population was 300 in 1990 and 322 in 2000.
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There is a quandary here, as Cynthia Ann Parker's daughter, Topsannah, died in 1864 before the Edom schools were established. Her second son, Pecos, died in 1862, and by 1866, she no longer had contact with her remaining child, Quanah. Topsannah was originally buried at Asbury Cemetery, just west of Edom. When her brother, Quanah Parker, had their mother's remains moved to Oklahoma in 1910, they also brought Topsannah's remains.