Brown County
Brownwood, Brown County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Created August 27, 1856; Organized March 21, 1857. Named for Capt. Henry S. Brown; came to Texas in 1824; Indian trader and fighter, commanded a company at the Battle of Velasco, member of the Convention of 1832; county seat, Brownwood 1856; moved to new site of same name, 1867. (1936)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Brown County was created in 1856 and organized the next year, named for Capt. Henry S. Brown, who came to Texas in 1824 as an Indian trader and frontier fighter. Brown commanded a company at the 1832 Battle of Velasco and served in the Convention of 1832, one of the steps toward Texas independence. The county seat of Brownwood was named for him and moved to a new site of the same name in 1867.
Why it matters
Its namesake bridges the trader-and-fighter world of early Anglo Texas and the political ferment that led to revolution, tying the county's founding to the state's origin story.
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Related people
- · Capt. Henry S. Brown
Related events
- · Battle of Velasco
- · Convention of 1832
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Greenleaf Fisk
Brownwood, TX
Known as the 'Father of Brownwood,' Greenleaf Fisk (1807–1888) was born in New York to English parents and abandoned ministry studies in 1834 to brave the Texas frontier. He fought at San Jacinto in 1836, held county offices, and served as a senator in the Republic of Texas, and as a government surveyor he mapped and came to love this region. Settling here on a Texas Revolution land grant, he donated 60 acres for the town and 100 for county use, then persuaded neighbors to relocate to the new county seat.
Connell Cemetery
Brownwood vicinity, TX
William Connell brought his family to Texas in 1834 and lived through its most formative decades, serving in the Republic of Texas Army, the Texas Rangers, and later the Confederate Army. The cemetery that bears his name—thought to be among the oldest in Brown County—was likely in use before 1861, and when the Connells buried their son in 1866 they set what is believed to be its first headstone. Sixteen families and more than twenty unmarked graves lie here, a quiet record of the pioneers who settled this frontier.
Jenkins Springs Cemetery
Brownwood, TX
Richardson Jenkins, one of Brown County's earliest pioneers, settled a farm northeast of Brownwood whose spring took his name and later served the local school and church. The county's earliest known graves here belong to four army surveyors ambushed and killed nearby, and Jenkins himself, who died in 1867, has the first marked grave; veterans from the Civil War through Vietnam also rest in the cemetery.
Heflin Cemetery
Brownwood vicinity, TX
William W. and Pency Heflin settled here in 1875, and local tradition holds that the first burial was a child who died in 1876 after eating wild berries while his family camped on the property. The earliest marked grave, that of Robert Bonine, also dates to 1876, and a deed confirming the Heflins' donation of four acres was recorded in 1928. Among those resting here are many of the area's pioneer settlers and veterans of wars from the Civil War through World War II.