Like Pelham, Babylon was located in the western portion of Navarro County.  It is approximately seventeen miles southwest of Corsicana and almost midway between Dawson and Purdon.

The community was established around a small church that was built near Warren Chapel, a predominantly white neighborhood.  This occurred around 1895, when Peter Hopkins, a Negro resident in the area gave one acre of land to be used as the site for a building to house a school and Negro Methodist Church.   It was also used by a Baptist congregation and the Viridian Masonic Lodge No. 134.

Several Negro families lived south of the new church and helped make up the Babylon community.  They included the Allie Carroll, Noah Melton, Ed Welch and Shad Washington families.  All of them lived near Post Oak Creek, a tributary of Richland Creek on which the Navarro Mills Lake was later located.

Among the more prominent families in Babylon were the Louis C. Cunninghams who settled across and east of Post Oak Creek.  Louis and his wife, Mary Etta, were very religious, and the later is given credit for the community name of Babylon which was accepted by members of both the white and negro races.

Louis Cunningham, the son of M. C. Cunningham of Dresden, was born as a slave in 1860.  He married Mary Etta Johnson, also a native of Dresden, who was born in 1870.  The date of their marriage was January 4, 1886.

Ten children were born to this union, and seven of them reached the age of maturity.  They were Dr. Sampson Cunningham, Fred Douglas, C. C., Emily, Arizona, Arthur, and Josephine Cunningham.  Fred Douglas resides in Corsicana at this time.

During a two-year period (1903-04), Louis Cunningham purchased 194 acres of land which lay west of Post Oak Creek and north of Richland Creek.  It was adjacent to the one-acre tract of land set up for a church and school by Peter Hopkins.

He will likely be remembered best for his syrup-making ability.  His many acres of rich bottom land produced an abundance of sorghum cane and enabled him to run his widely known molasses mill for several months each year.

Louis Cunningham died in 1921, and is buried in the Younger Cemetery, one mile north of Purdon.  His wife died in 1929, and is also buried in the Younger Cemetery.  He was active in church (Methodist) and lodge work, and was a successful farmer.  He and his wife were a credit to their race and to the Babylon community.

Babylon never had a post office or any mercantile establishments.  The people of the area traded at Dawson, Purdon, and Spring Hill, but the community did have its own school.

In the beginning, the Babylon school was a unit in the Warren Point District, No. 80, which was located Northwest of Purdon and was operated at a three-months school.  In 1902 it became a part of the Navarro Mills district which was created out of the Warren Chapel district.

In 1917 the Navarro Mills District was consolidated with the Alliance Hall District.  Eleven years later the area included in the old Warren Chapel District, which included both white and negro schools, and the Babylon unit was consolidated with the Purdon district.  Subsequently, the Purdon district was consolidated with the Dawson School District which now offers instructions to the smaller number of children who still reside in the Babylon community.

Today Babylon retains little more than its name, as most of its former residents have moved from the area.  The old Babylon church and school building is still standing, an is remarkably well-preserved.  But those who worshipped and studied inside its walls are gone, and the structure is merely a monument to remind us that Babylon was once an active community of Negro residents.

Still standing, also is the old home of Louis Cunningham, one of the oldest in the Babylon community.  But, according to the late and lamented Alva Taylor, and outstanding authority on Navarro County History, "Today the roof lets in the sun.  Broken window let in the rain.  Cracks in the walls let in the cold, where once comfort and warmth reigned.  It is now old, quiet and slowly falling apart.  Soon it will be only a memory.  But it has filled its day as 'Home Sweet Home' for the family of Louis Cunningham."

Likewise, Babylon has fulfilled its mission, and like many other vanishing communities in Navarro County, will be remembered only because the members of this Society have sought to preserve a record of the achievements and the cultures of the pioneers who worked and wrought in them.