History
Alonzo Marion Story
Alonzo Marion Story Alonzo Marion Story (1882-1966) was born in New Orleans to parents John and Mary Story. He attended public schools and graduated from Louisiana's Leland College before doing post-graduate work in Texas and Colorado. Story came to Texas at the age of 21 and taught mathematics in Midway.
History
Anderson Campground
Located on a spring near Brushy Creek community, this area was first settled in the 1850s. In 1873 it was set aside for use as a religious campground by members of the local Methodist congregation. The land was purchased from E. S. Jamison of Galveston County for sixty dollars in gold. The tabernacle was built the following year of pine beams, sweet gum piers, and wooden pegs.
History
Anderson County
Created March 24, 1846, from Houston County. Organized July 13, 1846 with Palestine as the county seat. Named in honor of Kenneth Lewis Anderson, vice-president of the Republic of Texas, 1844-45
Architecture
Anderson County Courthouse
Created by the Texas Legislature on March 24, 1846, Anderson County was named for former Republic of Texas Vice President Kenneth L. Anderson. The first court in the new county was held in a log house at nearby Fort Houston in 1846. The first Anderson County Courthouse, a one-story frame structure, was built in 1847.
Military
Anderson County in the Civil War
After the creation of Anderson County in 1846, most settlers came from Southern states, shaping the county's destiny in the Civil War. When Texas became the seventh state to secede from the Union on March 2, 1861, the county vote, 870 to 15, was overwhelmingly in favor of secession. Notable citizens John H. Reagan, A.T. Rainey, S.G. Stewart and T.J.
History
Anderson County Poor Farm
Although county records show some attempts to care for the poor as early as the 1860s, property for a poor farm was not purchased until 1884. Various buildings were erected, including housing for residents and a caretaker, storage barns, a cotton gin, and a canning operation. A jail building was also in use for convict laborers who worked on the farm and on county roads.
History
Bell Cemetery
Confederate veteran Uriah Jasper Bell (1839 -1915) brought his family to northeast Texas in 1871. An ordained Baptist minister, he relocated to this area to lead the Ft. Houston Baptist Church. He and his wife Nancy (d. 1918) were the parents of seven children. Their only daughter, Lula Bell Kent, died in a fire in January 1890, three months after her marriage to Will Kent.
History
Bethel Cemetery
Originally part of a Mexican land grant awarded to Jose de Jesus Grande in 1828, land at this site was later granted to early area settler Henry Rampy. Rampy, who had come to this part of Texas in 1848, deeded 5 acres of his land in 1859 for a community cemetery and church. The earliest significant settlement of pioneers in the Bethel area came in 1846.
History
Bethel Church and Cemetery
The Rev. James Madison McCarty (1802-1869) is the first Primitive Baptist minister known to have served in this area. In 1853 Bethel Primitive Baptist Church of Christ was established as a member of the Union Association organized by Daniel Parker. Church services were held one weekend a month.
History
Captain Steven L. Bennett
Born in Palestine on April 22, 1946, Steven Logan Bennett grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana. He graduated from Youngsville High School in 1964 and then enrolled at Southwestern Louisiana State (now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette) where he majored in Aeronautical Engineering and participated in the Air Force ROTC. While at university, Steven was Commander of the Arnold Air Society.
History
Captain William Kimbro
In Memory of Commanded a company at San Jacinto; came to Texas in 1831; born in Tennessee; died in Anderson County, September 14, 1856.
History
Christopher Columbus Rogers
Born in Palestine in June 1850, Christopher Columbus Rogers was a noted and controversial lawman. Although his family moved to a rural area, Rogers returned to Palestine and lived with his sister, Eliza, and her husband, James Ewing.
History
Col. G. R. Howard House
Built 1851 by Col. G. R. Howard, merchant and public official. Owned by family until sold to city, 1965, for a museum. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1966
History
Col. Homer Garrison, Jr.
Born in Kickapoo (Anderson Co.) in 1901, Homer Garrison was the son of Mattie (Milam) and Homer Garrison, Sr. The family moved to Angelina County, where Homer, Sr. served as district clerk. Homer, Jr. graduated from Lufkin High School and worked for his father. Against his father's advice, he took his first law enforcement job at age 19, as Angelina County deputy sheriff.
History
Concord Baptist Church and Cemetery
Three families named Fitzgerald moved to Texas in the 1840s and purchased land at Mound Prairie Creek, eleven miles north of Palestine. The area in which they settled became known as Fitzgerald. As other families moved to the area, interest grew in organizing a church. Fifteen charter members met at the Fitzgerald schoolhouse in 1871 and formed a Baptist church.
History
Dr. Bonner Frizzell
Bonner Frizzell was born in the Pine Grove Community, near Athens, in 1882. He was the son of William Asachel and Frances Missouri (Knight) Frizzell. Bonner attended high school at Bruce Academy in Athens and then moved to Tyler to attend Tyler Commercial College. At eighteen, he began his career in education by teaching algebra and geometry to a pair of children.
History
Early Settlement of Northwestern Anderson County
Early Texas settlements were often centered around institutions such as churches and schools. Even those that were short-lived played significant roles in the historical development of the state. When Anderson County organized in 1846, the area west of Catfish Creek was only sparsely populated. Community development began in the 1840s on land owned by Georgia-native Charles Gilmore (1796-1880).
Industry & Science
Eilenberger's Bakery
F. H. Eilenberger (1878 - 1959), a German immigrant, worked at bakeries in Galveston and Fort Worth before starting this company in 1898. Originally located on the corner of John and Oak streets, the operation was moved to this site in 1918. Eilenberger also lived here for several years.
History
Elkhart Garden of Memories Cemetery
Situated among oak, pine and crepe myrtles, this cemetery is the resting place for descendants of Elkhart settlers. The first burial was that of Lewis Hunter in 1887, although the cemetery was not official until J.D. Fuller and his wife, Gertrude Fuller, donated two acres of land in 1906. A number of veterans from the Civil War to Desert Storm are buried here, including E.V.
History
Elkhart Myrtle Springs Cemetery
Established with a church and school nearby, this cemetery is the primary remaining vestige of the early farming community known as Myrtle Springs. John A. Box of the David G. Burnet colony and original settler of the property received the land from the Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas in 1835.
History
Fields Chapel Methodist Church and Cemetery
Pioneer settlement began in this vicinity in the late 1830s and early 1940s. This area was the location of several camp revival meetings. The Rev. John W. Fields organized the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1852 and the church was named for him. Trustees elected were W. R. Anglin, J. J. O'Quinn, E. W. Hassell, Joseph Shaver, A. J. Killion, L. D. Fulton, and A. K. W. Jones.
History
First Gravesite of Cynthia Ann Parker
Captured from Ft. Parker by Indians, 1836. Recaptured by Texas Rangers in 1860. Mother of Quanah Parker, war chief of Comanches. First buried here. Reburied in Post Oak Cemetery, Okla., 1910. Reburied Ft. Sill Post Cemetery, Okla., 1957. Recorded --1969
History
Fort Houston
(site one-fourth mile south) A stockade and blockhouse of the Republic of Texas. Built in 1835-1836 to protect settlers who founded Houston, a pioneer town, now in Anderson County. Friendly Indians would come to trade at the site, but wary settlers often slept inside the 25-foot-square blockhouse, built of heavy logs.
History
Fort Houston
A fort and stockade built about 1836 on the public square of the town of Houston (then in Houston County), as a protection against the Indians, by order of General Sam Houston, Commander-in-Chief of the Texan armies. The town was abandoned in 1846 for Palestine, the new seat of Anderson County, the fort about 1841. The site is now a part of the historic home of John H.
History
Fort Houston Cemetery
In 1835, Joseph Jordan and William S. McDonald donated about 500 acres of land in this area for the town of Houston, later known as Fort Houston. An early map of the townsite shows a section designated as a "public burying ground." The infant child of the Rev. Peter Fullinwider, an early Protestant minister in Anderson County, is said to have been the first to be interred here.
Elsewhere in Texas
Hear it from the road
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