The small farming community of Shiloh began about 1847 with settlement by the McBride, Hamilton, McFarland, Odom, Anderson, and Woods families. In 1851 John Keith Rankin helped organize a Methodist Episcopal Church, whose members erected a building in 1852. Shiloh School, established in 1856, served the community until the early part of the 20th century. The first burial in the Shiloh Cemetery was that of Montraville Woods, son of Texas patriot Zadock Woods, in 1857. Woods Cemetery, as it is now called, is all that remains of the Shiloh community.