Ben Wheeler

Ben Wheeler is on State Highway 64 and Farm roads 279 and 858 twelve miles southeast of Canton in southeast central Van Zandt County. The community is surrounded by springs in rich farming country that was originally part of Henderson County. The site was settled in the 1840s. Kentucky native Benjamin F. Wheeler, who arrived from New Orleans around 1847 and obtained a grant of 640 acres at Creagleville, near Grand Saline, carried the mail to the community in the early years. The community was called Clough, for prominent settler George Washington Clough. In 1876 a post office was established at his home, with Clough as the first postmaster. The community was named for Ben Wheeler in 1878. Wheeler carried the mail from Tyler to Buffalo, staying the night with his friend Clough. In the early 1880s George Clough built a general store, a schoolhouse, and a church one mile east of the present townsite and applied to move the post office and change the name to Georgetown. While the post office was moved, there was already another Georgetown in Texas, so the community's name remained Ben Wheeler. In 1888 Ben Wheeler had three churches, a district school, saw and grist mills, two syrup mills, cotton gins, and a general store.