Edmund A. Wynne

Edmund A. Wynne. . The Wynne community of Canton is one of the oldest African American communities in Texas. Its namesake, Edmund Arnold Wynne, was born June 18, 1850, in Cherokee County to a family of slaves. His family moved to the Big Rock area of Van Zandt County in 1866. By 1869, just four years after emancipation, his father, Henry Wynne, managed to buy 100 acres of land. In July 1871, Edmund married Martha Shaw, and joined the state militia to stop the general lawlessness that had developed in opposition to Reconstruction. Edmund purchased his own land in 1876 and in 1879, he sold for one dollar an acre of this land to the Colored Methodist Church of Clear Springs, the name for the African American community which had formed in the Big Rock area. He and his father also established Clear Springs School for African American children. By 1882, Edmund sold his land at Big Rock and moved to Canton where he purchased another farm. After Martha died in 1883, Edmund married Ella Lawley., As Edmund Wynne became more successful in farming, he supported what would be known as the Wynne community, aiding neighbors in becoming self-sufficient and even in raising money to build a mill. His own success and involvement also attracted other former slaves and struggling families to move to the area. In 1888 he sold for one dollar land for the site of the Promise Land Colored Methodist Church, used for church and school. He actively participated in the education of the Black community, helping keep the respected educator Rufus Hardin as a teacher at one of the schools until 1896. One of the schools that Edmund sold land to in 1902 eventually became renamed Wynne School. In 1896, Ella died and Edmund married Ann Preisley Matthews that year, after a lifetime of community involvement, Edmund Wynne died on April 1, 1931.