The future Henderson County was part of the Nacogdoches District in Spanish and Mexican Texas. The Texas legislature established Henderson County on April 27, 1846, and named it in honor of James Pinckney Henderson, first governor of the state of Texas. The county was formed from parts of Nacogdoches and Houston counties. Henderson County was organized on August 4, 1846, and comprised 3,500 square miles at the time. Buffalo was the county seat until March 1848. Centerville, six miles west of the site of present Eustace, near the center of the county, was to be the permanent county seat. On September 11, 1848, court was held in Centerville. But Centerville did not remain the county seat. On April 2, 1849, the archives and county government were returned to Buffalo, for reasons not exactly clear, and Centerville ceased to exist. In 1848 the legislature formed Van Zandt and Kaufman counties out of Henderson County and reduced it to its present size. The center of the county again moved, and the new county seat was Athens. -handbook of Texas Online: Henderson County