Independence | |
---|---|
Coordinates: 30°19′10″N96°20′48″W / 30.31944°N 96.34667°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Texas |
County | Washington |
Elevation | 358 ft (109 m) |
GNIS feature ID | 1338384 [1] |
Independence is an unincorporated community in Washington County, Texas, United States. According to the Handbook of Texas, the community had a population of 140 in 2000. It is located about an hour northwest of the Greater Houston metropolitan area.
Independence was established in 1835 on 78 acres (32 ha) in Stephen F. Austin's colony by J. G. W. Pierson, Robert Stevenson, Colbert Baker, and Amasa F. Burchard. This land was a portion of a land concession made by the Mexican government to Thomas S. Saul, who then gave it to Pierson and Baker. The community flourished and developed into an important center for education and religion in the Republic of Texas. The Independence Baptist Church was founded in 1839 by elders Thomas W. Cox and Thomas Spraggins. Cox served as the church's first pastor. The second-oldest church connected to the Baptist General Convention of Texas was still a thriving congregation in the 1990s. In 1854, the church in which Sam Houston belonged baptized him in Little Rocky Creek, located two miles southeast of the community. In Independence, a post office was founded in 1846. The town also had a jail, a Masonic lodge, a cemetery, a hotel, a stagecoach depot, and a minor business center by the 1850s. Independence was formed in 1852, and T. T. Clay served as its first mayor. Despite their desire to assist Independence, the Baylor officials and city fathers refused to provide the Santa Fe train the right of way. Most of the local railway lines had bypassed Independence by the 1880s, and a large portion of trade was moving to rival towns. 200 people were living there in 1966, and the post office was no longer in operation. Independence had 140 residents in 1990 and was a small rural community. In 2000, that number stayed the same. The Independence Baptist Church, the Texas Baptist Historical Center, Judge Coles' house, and Baylor College Park were just a few of the many historical sites there. Other noteworthy locations include the Old Independence Cemetery, which has the burial places of Judge Coles, Sam Houston Jr., Moses Austin Bryan, T. T. Clay, and other notable Texans, as well as the Margaret Houston House and Houston-Lea Family Cemetery, which contains the graves of Margaret Lea Houston and her mother. [2] Its population was reported as 140 in 2010. [3]
Milam Lodge No. 11, of the Grand Lodge of Texas, was located in the community. [4]
Seward Plantation is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
A tornado hit Independence in December 1983. On May 26, 2016, an EF0 tornado struck Independence, in which numerous trees were downed in a convergent pattern. [5]
In the 1838 Republic of Texas presidential election, Mirabeau B. Lamar claimed that he had moved to Texas in 1835 to become a citizen and purchased land rights from the community's land surveyor from which he could produce a receipt as evidence. [6]
Independence is located at the intersection of Farm to Market Roads 390 and 50, 12 mi (19 km) northeast of Brenham and 82 mi (132 km) west of Houston in northeastern Washington County. [3]
The Union Baptist Association obtained a charter to construct a university through the Texas Baptist Educational Society in 1845. Several cities submitted bids, but Independence—at the time Texas' richest community—won the right to keep the institution. With 24 students, Baylor University opened its doors as a coeducational institution in Independence in 1846. The school was split into male and female sections in 1851, and in 1866 it was given the official names Baylor Female College and Baylor University. Due to transportation issues, officials moved Baylor Female College (now the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor) and Baylor University to Belton and Waco in 1885. This decision signaled the start of Independence's century-long decline. [2] Today, the community is served by the Brenham Independent School District.
American western TV series Walker: Independence takes place in Independence. [20]
Washington County is a county in Texas. As of the 2020 census, the population was 35,805. Its county seat is Brenham, which is located along U.S. Highway 290, 72 miles northwest of Houston. The county was created in 1835 as a municipality of Mexico and organized as a county in 1837. It is named for George Washington, the first president of the United States.
William Cowper Brann was an American journalist also known as Brann the Iconoclast. During his life, he gained a reputation as a "brilliant though vitriolic editorialist." He defended lynching Black men accused of rape and called for opponents of this type of mob violence to be castrated.
Washington-on-the-Brazos is an unincorporated community along the Brazos River in Washington County, Texas, United States. The town is best known for being the site of the Convention of 1836 and the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence.
Margaret Lea Houston was First Lady of the Republic of Texas during her husband Sam Houston's second term as President of the Republic of Texas. They met following the first of his two non-consecutive terms as the Republic's president, and married when he was a representative in the Congress of the Republic of Texas. She was his third wife, remaining with him until his death.
Pompeo Luigi Coppini was an Italian born sculptor who emigrated to the United States. Although his works can be found in Italy, Mexico and a number of U.S. states, the majority of his work can be found in Texas. He is particularly famous for the Alamo Plaza work, Spirit of Sacrifice, a.k.a. The Alamo Cenotaph, as well as numerous statues honoring Texan figures, such as Lawrence Sullivan Ross, the fourth President of Texas A&M University.
Chappell Hill is an unincorporated community in the eastern portion of Washington County, Texas, United States. It is located inside Stephen F. Austin's original colony, and the land is some of the oldest Anglo-settled in the state. According to the Handbook of Texas, the community had a population of 600 in 2000. It is located within the Greater Houston metropolitan area.
Ratcliff is an unincorporated community in Houston County, Texas, in East Texas, United States. According to the Handbook of Texas, the community had a population of 106 in 2000.
James Milton Carroll was an American Baptist pastor, leader, historian, author, and educator.
The Grand Lodge of Texas, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons is the largest of several governing bodies of Freemasonry in the State of Texas, being solely of the Ancients' tradition and descending from the Ancient Grand Lodge of England, founded on 17 June 1751 at the Turk's Head Tavern, Greek Street, Soho, London. According to historian James D. Carter, the "Grand Lodge of the Republic of Texas, A.F. & A.M." was founded on 16 April 1838. However, its first Grand Master and other grand officers were installed by Sam Houston on 11 May 1838. The Grand Lodge of Texas is one of the largest in the world, reporting 69,099 members in 2019. The current Grand Lodge of Texas facilities were made possible by the fundraising efforts of Waco Masonic Lodge No. 92.
Old Independence Cemetery was founded in 1823. It is located in Independence, Texas, on land donated by Medora Coles McCrocklin, a daughter of Judge J. P. Coles, one of the Old Three Hundred from the Austin Colony. The cemetery was an early community graveyard used by Anglo-American pioneers of Texas. It is commemorated by a state historical marker.
Henry Lee Graves was the president of Baylor University from 1846 to 1851.
Rufus Columbus Burleson was the president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, from 1851 to 1861 and again from 1886 to 1897.
William Carey Crane was an American Baptist minister, an educator, and the president of Baylor University from 1864 to 1885.
Joshua Houston (1822–1902) was born into slavery in 1822 on the Perry County, Alabama plantation owned by Temple Lea and Nancy Moffette Lea, parents of Margaret Lea Houston. When Margaret married Sam Houston, Joshua moved to Texas with the newlyweds. Joshua traveled with Sam Houston and worked on the construction of Raven Hill in Huntsville, Texas. He became educated and was elected to local public offices. He had three wives and was the father of eight children, including Samuel Walker Houston. Joshua was a Texas delegate at the 1884 Republican National Convention. He helped establish the Bishop Ward Normal and Collegiate Institute.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Waco, Texas, US.
George Washington Baines was an American politician, Baptist preacher, journalist, slaveowner, and educator. He was a co-founder, and the third president of Baylor University, while the university was located in Independence, Texas.
Sam Houston was a slaveholder who had a complicated history with the institution of slavery. He was the president of the independent Republic of Texas, which was founded as a slave-holding nation, and governor of Texas after its 1845 annexation to the union as a slave-holding state. He voted various times against the extension of slavery into the Western United States and he did not swear an oath to the Confederate States of America, which marked the end of his political career.
Sam Houston Jr. (1843–1894) was the oldest of eight children born to Sam Houston and Margaret Lea Houston, and was the only Houston child born in the Republic of Texas, before its December 29, 1845 annexation to the United States. He was home-schooled by his mother, and later attended both Bastrop Military Institute and Baylor University. After Texas seceded from the Union in 1861, he enlisted in the Confederate States Army 2nd Texas Infantry Regiment, Company C Bayland Guards. Wounded at the April 1862 Battle of Shiloh, he served time as a prisoner of war at Camp Douglas in Illinois. Following his release, he received a medical discharge from the Confederate States Army. He attended the Philadelphia University of Medicine and Surgery. Upon graduation, he returned to a private life, and it is unknown if he ever practiced medicine. At some point, he became a writer. Houston married Lucy Anderson in 1875. Their daughter Margaret Bell Houston (1877–1966) was also a writer, as well as a suffragist who became the first president of the Dallas Equal Suffrage Association. Upon his death, Sam Jr. was buried on private property near his mother.
Antoinette "Nettie" Power Houston Bringhurst (1852–1932) was a Texas poet, the youngest daughter and fifth child of Sam Houston and his third wife Margaret Lea Houston. The elder Houston had no children with his two previous wives. Antoinette was born in the family's Woodland home near Huntsville, Texas. As a child, she lived in the Texas Governor's Mansion when her father served as Governor of Texas. Her youngest brother Temple Lea Houston was born in the mansion. She received an education at Baylor Female College in Independence, Texas, and at Austin Female College in Huntsville.