The town of Rosewood occupies the location of the old Double Springs community. Back in the beginning, Double Springs was a thickly settled community, filled with a lot of mighty fine people. There was a school and a Missionary Baptist Church located here since the early days of Texas history. Some of the early settlers were: the McKinneys, the Wades, the Stephensons, John King, Dr. Carson, Rev. William Arrington, the Bullocks, the Hurts, the Carters, Berry Wilson, Pack Williams, Henry Petty, Steve Williams, and many others, living like most other people lived at that time.
When the Marshall and East Texas railroad was built through here, it passed through Double Springs, and the town of Rosewood was built up. Town lots were sold and soon a considerable town was in operation. Several stores were opened and Rosewood became a considerable trading center. A bank was established and a postoffice secured. A nice school building was erected and a large school was maintained for several years.
After the railroad went out of business and was discontinued, Rosewood, like all other towns along the road, lost its importance as a commercial town. The bank was closed. The postoffice was discontinued and rural delivery established. The Rosewood school district is at present a part of the Harmony consolidated district, with the school building located just west of Rosewood on the Rhonesboro road. This is a fully accredited high school. They have a nice rock building, with all modern equipment, with a number of buses bringing high school pupils from the surrounding districts.
The early settlers of Shady Grove were of a high moral class of people. It seems that the rough, lawless characters that we hear so much about back in the early days, were absent in the Shady Grove settlement. Texas was, at this time, a country with its boundless resources undeveloped. She was offering unusual inducements to settlers, and all roads leading to Texas were crowded with emigrants to the Lone Star State.
It is not known at this time just who made the first settlement in the present Shady Grove area. We know that the community was well established before the war between the United States and Mexico in 1846. When Texas joined the United States in 1846, Mexico declared war on the United States. Tom Ellison, then a young man, came on horseback from Tennessee to join the forces against Mexico. He came through Shady Grove and stopped a while with some of the citizens. After the war was over, he came back and homesteaded a tract of land on Big Sandy creek, and built the log house in which his son, Jim Ellison, now lives.