Dizenia Peters Todd
Mason vicinity, Mason County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(Aug. 5, 1826 - Jan. 1865) Born in Mississippi, Dizenia Peters moved to Texas with her parents about 1835. She married William P. Smith in 1844 and had a son, James. After Smith's death, she married George W. Todd (1827-1901) in 1851; they had 3 daughters. Todd and members of his wife's family settled this area in the 1850s and were among the first Mason County officials. Mrs. Todd and a Black servant girl were fatally wounded in an Indian attack near this site and buried in adjacent unmarked graves. Recorded - 1975
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Dizenia Peters Todd came to Texas as a child in the 1830s and, with her husband George W. Todd's family, was among the earliest settlers and officials of Mason County in the 1850s. She was killed in an Indian raid near this site around January 1865, a period when frontier defenses had thinned during the Civil War, and was buried with a young Black servant in adjacent unmarked graves.
Why it matters
Her story captures the violent, precarious edge of Anglo settlement on the Texas frontier and the ordinary families who bore its cost.
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Related people
- · Dizenia Peters Todd
- · George W. Todd
- · William P. Smith
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Todd Mountain
Mason vicinity, TX
In late December 1864, the family of George W. Todd, Mason County's first clerk, was attacked here while traveling to Mason. A twelve-year-old Black servant girl was killed, thirteen-year-old Alice Todd was carried off, and Todd's wife Dizenia was gravely wounded, dying about three weeks later. Alice's half-brother James Smith returned from the Civil War and searched for months, but she was never found.
Mason County
Mason vicinity, TX
Created and organized in 1858, Mason County took its name from Fort Mason, the frontier post garrisoned on and off from 1851 to 1869. The fort honored Lt. G. T. Mason of the U.S. 2nd Dragoons, killed near Brownsville in 1846. It was one link in a chain of Army posts spaced a day's ride apart from the Red River to the Rio Grande, built to shield settlers from Apache and Comanche raids.
Fort Mason and Camp Llano, C.S.A.
Mason, TX
When Texas seceded, Fort Mason and the newly established Camp Llano became links in a Confederate line of frontier posts, spaced a day's ride apart from the Red River to the Rio Grande. Occupied first by the First Regiment Texas Mounted Rifles and then the Frontier Regiment, these troops guarded scattered settlers against raids while the war raged elsewhere. Locals took shelter at Fort Mason, and even a lone mail carrier crept between the posts by night, dodging raiders to keep the mail moving.
First Comanche-German Meeting
Mason, TX
On February 5, 1847, in the Texas Hill Country, a band of Penateka Comanches under Chief Ketumusua approached the camp of German immigrant surveyors led by John O. Meusebach, agent for the Adelsverein colonization society. Rather than fight, the two parties shared gifts and a meal and agreed to talk further. That first encounter opened the way to a formal peace council weeks later—a rare voluntary agreement to share territory that both sides largely honored.