The Hix in Dartmouth’s Historic Hixville Village

Hixville is a real place, thus Hixville Road.

As a dumb kid, I confused "Hix" with "hicks." A hick, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is defined as "a person who lives in the country, regarded as being unintelligent or provincial."

I assumed Hixville was Hooterville, replete with barefooted hillbillies with farmer jeans and no teeth. That was the worldview of a know-it-all kid from the North End of New Bedford.

Hixville is a village at the crossroads of what we now know as Reed Road, Old Fall River Road, and Hixville Road in North Dartmouth. You've no doubt driven past the white church. The village of Hixville sprung up around that church.

The First Baptist Church, constructed in 1785, was an offshoot of Elder Jacob Hix's church based in Rehoboth. The first pastor was Daniel Hix. The church became known as Hix's Meeting House. It was for Pastor Daniel Hix that Hixville was named.

Get our free mobile app

DartmouthWeek.com reported in 2017 that Quakers and Baptists "were drawn to Dartmouth to escape persecution in nearby Plymouth and Providence, but had to travel to the Rehoboth church for Sabbath services, weddings, and other religious events."

The existing church – the third iteration – was built in 1853. The church is currently known as The First Church of Hixville.

A 2014 Standard-Times article on Hixville examines the village's history and recalls how a stagecoach between Fall River and New Bedford would make routine stops in Hixville.

At one time, there were farms, a two-room schoolhouse, a general store and a hotel in Hixville. Residents skated on nearby Cornell Pond in the wintertime.

Dartmouth was settled by English immigrants in 1652, and the town was incorporated in 1664. Hixville was included on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.