History
Samuel Calhoun Cemetery
Established by Samuel Calhoun (1788-1871), native of Abbeville, S.C.; Captain of Cavalry, State of Georgia, during War of 1812. He came to Texas 1845. Bought land in Gordiana Badillo and Jose Ortega grants, in this area. Lived near Calhoun Ferry. Children by his first wife Elizabeth Finney (who died 1836): Martha Ann, Mary, Antonette, John H., Catherine, William.
History
Site of Andrew Female College
Site of Andrew Female College Andrew Female College was founded in 1852 and chartered in early 1853. It was named for Bishop James Osgood Andrew and sponsored by the Texas Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Couth, although its charter allowed no religious tests for faculty or students.
History
Site of Andrew Female College
Site of Andrew Female College; Established and chartered in 1853; An influential early Texas college for women founded by the Methodist Church; Named for Bishop James Osgood Andrew; Closed after about 26 years of service
Industry & Science
Site of Boettcher's Mill
German immigrant Baldwin Boettcher established a sawmill at Westfield, north of Houston, in 1898, along the International & Great Northern rail line. Boettcher and his mill workers produced 15,000 board feet of yellow pine, gum and cypress lumber daily.
History
Site of Cincinnati
Important shipping point in Trinity River navigation. Founded in 1838 by James C. De Witt. Abandoned after yellow fever scourge in 1853. Erected by the State of Texas 1936.
History
Site of Thomas Plantation and Steamboat Landing
John Richard Thomas (1820-63) of Alabama came to Texas in 1854. Developing a 1060-acre plantation, he built wharves here on the Trinity for shipping his cotton, corn, molasses, and other goods. Thomas' Landing was a regular port of call, giving riverboats considerable business. The Civil War (1861-65) and Thomas' death brought adversity to his people.
History
Southend Cemetery
A predominantly African American neighborhood called the Flat once numbered dozens of homes in an area southeast of the original boundaries of Sam Houston State University. As the university expanded in the late 1960s and early 1970s, residents were forced to sell their property and relocate. Southend Cemetery remains the last historic link to the Flat neighborhood.
History
St. Joseph's Catholic Church
The Rev. Felix Orzechowski, who came to Texas in 1866 to answer an appeal for Polish missionaries, organized St. Joseph's Parish in 1869. The first Catholic church in Walker County, it served the many Polish families who settled this area in the 1870s. Church tradition often sustained the immigrants until they adjusted to life in a new country.
Military
State Penitentiary C.S.A.
Inmates, slaves, free men worked in the penitentiary textile factory, main source of cloth goods for Confederate Southwest. Here "king cotton" and wool became millions of yards of cloth and yarn, osnaburgs, uniforms for state troops, Confederate army, needy families of soldiers, cloth sales supported 300 inmates and Union prisoners of war briefly kept there.
Architecture
Steamboat House
Built in 1858 by Dr. Rufus Bailey, 1858-62 president of Austin College, as a wedding gift for son. Unusual house caused such joking, however, the couple refused to live in it. In 1862, after Sam Houston left governorship of Texas, he rented Steamboat House, and here he died in 1863. His funeral was held in the upstairs parlor. In 1933 Houston businessman J. E.
History
Thomas Cemetery
This cemetery marks the site of Thomas Plantation and Steamboat Landing. John R. Thomas, a native of Alabama, settled here in 1854. A Confederate soldier during the Civil War, he was captured at the Battle of Arkansas in 1863 and transferred to Camp Chase, Ohio. He died there one month later.
History
Town of Riverside
Founded 1872 when Houston & Great Northern Railroad (later, International & Great Northern) was being built into the area. Walker County landowners gave earth, timber, and rock to the road in order to gain shipping facilities. Post office was moved here Feb. 23, 1872, from Newport (6 mi. SE), where wharves were idle when Trinity River was low.
History
Walker County
Created, 1846, from Montgomery County. First named for Robert J. Walker, U.S. Senator; in Civil War, Samuel H. Walker, Texas Ranger and Mexican War hero, was made honoree. Huntsville, county seat, was once an Indian trading post. First courthouse was built, 1848. A second one burned, January, 1888, and the present one was built in August, 1888.
History
Waverly Cemetery
This cemetery is situated on the land originally purchased in 1853 by Mary M. Lewis, James E. Scott, Laura A. Scott, and Milly D. Scott. The first recorded burial was that of John Andrew Jackson (1822-1855), a pioneer settler of Waverly. Three gravestones dated 1852 indicate reinterments rather than earlier burials. Hamlin F.
History
William Luther Dean
(April 13, 1866 - July 14, 1933) A Texas senator, William Luther Dean participated actively in Texas politics in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Born in 1866 in Madison County, Texas, Dean practiced law after graduating from Southwestern University, later forming a law firm. In 1892, Dean married Ella Corley in Madisonville.
History
Woodland, Home of Sam Houston
General of the army which won the war for Texas Independence, 1836, and first President of the Republic, 1836-1838, Sam Houston was one of the most controversial and colorful figures in Texas history. In his eventful career, Houston had resided in Nacogdoches, Liberty, Houston, and Austin. He and his wife Margaret (Lea) built this house, "Woodland", in 1847 to provide themselves with a town place.
Elsewhere in Texas
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
